Welcome to our week 15 update. We have largely completed the frantic kiwistart part of the season and are heading to mainpack. The cold nights have delivered an increase in brix’s and we have a flow of mainpack SunGold clearances being harvested. Sheds are full and we are scheduled out a number of days now. Schedulers and packhouses are working to maximise the volume packed now while the fruit is in its optimum maturity and keeping a close eye out for softs.
The supply cap for Hayward organic closes midnight tonight and this concludes the first past the post races.
I repeat my advice from the same time in previous years, there must be a better safer way to organise the early part of the season which would result in a safer profile, more orderly harvest and better quality fruit delivered to the market. Right across the industry we have taken unnecessary safety risks to deliver our growers optimum returns that sees them rewarded for putting fruit in a coolstore rather than on a vessel to head to the market. While we have raised this with Zespri, we have yet to get any real traction. This is a matter taken up by Seeka Growers last week at its monthly meeting.
The fruit
The Hayward brix, TZG and dry matter average are all tracking well compared to previous seasons, with the TZG currently 1.0 point higher than the same time last year. But dry matters are up for most growers – so it means that the fruit values will be down on average accordingly. The cold nights are anticipated to result in an uplift in the brixes.
SunGold is rapidly reaching main pack criteria with some of the brix-fractiles above 10. Colour appears to be more advanced than recent seasons along with dry matter levels. The team are keeping a close eye on brix’s and fruit firmness as optimal maturity is important. We will be continuing to monitor the crop and your CRM can discuss with you where your crops maturity is at.
The Harvest
To the numbers:
SunGold Conventional trays
| Industry packed 25.8m | Seeka 5.6m (21.8%) | |
| Average size | Industry 29.1 | Seeka 28.8 |
| Seeka in store | 2.5m | On order 1.06m |
SunGold Organic trays
| Industry packed 268k | eeka 63k (23.73%) | |
| Average size | Industry 28.5 | Seeka 25.8 |
| Seeka in store | 53k | On order 33k |
Hayward Conventional trays
| Industry packed 11.7m | Seeka 3.3m (28.4%) | |
| Average size | Industry 33.05 | Seeka 32.3 |
| Seeka in store | 1.8m | On order 1.1m |
Hayward Organic trays
| Industry packed 579k | Seeka 184k (31.9%) | |
| Average size | Industry 36.09 | Seeka 34.7 |
| Seeka in store | nil | On order nil |
Sweet Green
| Industry packed 342k | Seeka 46k (13.5%) | |
| Average size | Industry 37.4 | Seeka 38.2 |
| Seeka in store | 46k | On order 38k |
Kind regards and safe harvesting
Michael
Seeka Key
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