Frankly Speaking – Week 14 Update
Please accept this Grower Update to the end of week 14 [Sunday 5 April Easter Sunday]. I have included commentary up to midnight Monday to be as current as possible.
Please accept this Easter update to Growers. Sheds have continued to be at capacity in the first past the post period of kiwistart. Both Hayward and G3 caps remain open and are updated below. Fruit quality particularly in Hayward has been exceptional typically with low rejects and this has been appreciated by Post-Harvest crews who have worked continuous days to maximise the kiwistart earnings for our growers. Where we had fruit, our sheds operated right through Easter. Good quality fruit has also enabled smooth operations and Seeka has been to be able to pick up shipping shortages from other suppliers and load out greater volumes of fruit. There have been no significant safety issues reported to date and we are conscious of the safety profile after many days running, tired people and Zespri changing caps disrupting planning.
Both “first past the post” [FPP] caps for G3 and Hayward remain open. The G3 early season industry planning called for 3M trays of FPP followed by 1.5M trays allocated to each supplier in proportion to their share of the crop estimate in each of weeks 14 and 15. This has now been adjusted to an FPP cap of 6.0M trays with no allocated trays in weeks 14 and 15. [that means the week 15 contracted allocation reported last week is now in FPP]. So the race is still live and it is turning into a marathon rather than a sprint. As at last night [Monday midnight] the Industry had packed 4.4m trays G3 with Seeka at 715k [16%]. While the Industry is at 10.2m trays cleared a lot of these clearances are not in all sizes and accordingly not being harvested. At the same time clearances have slowed. Growers, understanding that fruit colours more quickly on the vine than in the shed and the operational issues around protocol A G3, are waiting for protocol B or N before harvesting and this is appreciated. Seeka has been able to load most of its G3 and has 153k trays in store at the end of last week.
Zespri has put in place a new kiwistart cap for G3 organic. This cap is 100k trays and our first maturity area has cleared and is scheduled for picking.
The Hayward FPP cap remains open and has been increased from 7.0M trays to 9.0M trays. At the end of last night [Monday midnight] the Industry had packed 6.9M trays of the 9M FPP cap and Seeka had packed 2.1m trays [30.4%]. The cap is expected to fall this week. Fruit quality particularly in Te Puke has been tremendous with total rejects typically between 5% and 10%. Operations have been smooth with sheds packing over the top of the fruit flow. Seeka size of 34 is close to Industry average. Currently there is 1.35M trays of Hayward in store with just over 1M ordered to be shipped this week.
No Hayward organic has been harvested yet.
Seeka has packed approximately 63k trays of G14 and shipped 47k. Our strategy has been to pack over the top of clearances and ship and to date we have packed 27% of the Industry fruit but shipped 35%.
The current focus is the two remaining caps and maximising the weekly volume of fruit through our facilities. In the case of G3 to pack the fruit available to us by Thursday night and in the case of Hayward to pack as much as possible under the 9M cap.
To the statistics as at midnight Sunday 5 April:
Hayward
Seeka packed 1,984,848 trays Industry packed 6,594,273 trays [30%]
Average size 33.85 34.03
Shipped 608,789 trays In-store 1,376,059 trays
In order for week 15 1,028,254 trays
In the case of Hayward – included in the 609k trays of shipped fruit is 142k trays of load outs that we have picked up as a result of other suppliers not meeting their order commitments. We expect to substantially load out the inventory this week.
G14
Seeka packed 63,124 trays Industry packed 232,336 [27%]
Average size 35.97 36.19
Shipped 46,846 trays In-store 16,278 trays
In order for week 15 0 trays
In the case of G14 – included in the 47k trays of shipped fruit is 19k trays of load outs that we have picked up as a result of other suppliers not meeting their order commitments.
G3
Seeka packed 691,848 trays Industry packed 4,490,162 [16%]
Average size 29.59 29.35
Shipped 538,463 trays In store 152,795 trays
In order for week 15 187,068 trays
In the case of G3 – included in the 538k trays of shipped fruit is 105k trays of fruit loads that our teams have picked up as a result of other suppliers not meeting their order commitments. Included in the 153k trays of remaining fruit are 108k trays of fruit still at protocol A. It’s a fair question for the Industry to ask “why have we paid substantial kiwistart monies to suppliers or growers only for them not to make the fruit available for the early market – particularly when Zespri shipped a large volume of fruit as protocol A ”.
Other updates:
Oakside Recovery: The roof in Room 3 [between Central Canopy and North Shed] has been removed and this week being replaced along with all coolstore evaporators. The wall between the central coolstores and North Shed is also being replaced and the container loadout docks and canopy for curtain sider loadouts being re-instated. Our target date is 15 April for completion.
Safety Remains our focus
While operations are settled and into the momentum of packing – there are a lot of tired people, there are a lot of movements at every site and in orchards and there are a number of safety risks. In addition crews are being asked to respond to changing kiwistart caps by Zespri [from a relatively safe environment] and work longer hours for more days. There is a safety risk aspect to running a Thursday and Sunday cut off. You are asked to be particularly vigilant at this time. If you see something unsafe then take action and report it immediately.
Thank you for the quality
Please accept our appreciation for those growers last week who delivered exceptional fruit quality on Sunday as our crews pushed up to the artificial mid-night cut off. Crews under pressure to deliver maximum pack volumes for our growers appreciated your efforts in the orchard that made their jobs easier. Thank you.
Kind regards
Michael
Seeka Key
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