Seeka has achieved a successful and safe first week of packing. Thank you to all of our growers, contractors and staff who combined to get harvest underway. All sheds were commissioned as we pushed to the Thursday midnight cut off, and we packed a lot of fruit, more than we might have anticipated with our market share. A number of orchards were select picked to get the cleared sizes in and using NIR where sensible to check the fruit sizes picked outside the cleared range. Generally, fruit quality was excellent and it was appreciated by the sheds. In one or two cases fruit was distressed, making us a little cautious about what we might encounter later in the season. Soft fruit, explosive softs and rots the main culprits in those few lines. The SunGold fruit size packed to date has been very large with an average size 26.71, 33% of the fruit in a size 18 /22. The fruit is colouring well in store.
The first of the G14 has been packed under the special clearance dispensation. Under this clearance criterion your fruit must have achieved the following:
Lower brix fractile >=5.4 brix
Black seed >= 85%
Minimum Taste Standard 16.8% Dry matter
and will only be paid the early supply premium which is lagged by one week.
The unsettled weather pattern continues and should be expected to continue. It will play havoc with our harvest, particularly with picking contractors struggling to give pickers sufficient hours and pay to retain them. Potentially we are going to call on our contractors to pick large volumes between weather events which could create issues if people are short in numbers.
Currently staffing is ok, but we don’t seem to have the volume of people calling in, and our waiting lists are short. It is normal to have turnover in the sheds and without the waiting list we may face problems a little later in the season. Our overseas workers arrived in good volumes this week really alleviating the pressure we would have otherwise faced, particularly in the regional sheds.
Week 13 [this week] is the first week of Hayward Kiwistart [midnight Sunday night cut off 1 April]. We have a sprinkling of clearances and really are looking to get cracking in the hayward, while continuing to push on with the SunGold.
Good weather is predicted through to Thursday this week before a significant weather pattern comes in.
SunGold
Industry packed trays 3,378,925 Seeka packed 685,780 [20.3%]
First past the post target volume 12,000,000 trays
SweetGreen G14
Industry packed trays 37,839 Seeka packed 4,526 [11.9%]
Happy and safe harvesting
Regards
Michael
Seeka Key
Contacts