Settled weather has at last arrived and the team is pushing over the top of the G3 harvest. While brixes in G3 are climbing – we are well over the top of them. There are orchards cleared for harvest with lower dry matter, we are encouraging growers to deliver their fruit to the sheds with good pressure and not to hang on.
We have achieved our first mainpack clearances in Hayward with approximately 250k trays cleared and growers have made their fruit available for harvest. Thank you.
2016 will be a low dry matter year. Seeka has released its Technical Bulletin which highlights the dual effect of a low dry matter year and Zespri increasing the minimum taste standard [MTS] for Hayward. While averages look “ok”, viewing the data and individual results show a startling outcome with a lot of fruit below the 15.5 MTS, and a proportion below the 2015 MTS of 14.5. This is an issue that the Industry must quickly address.
At last weeks IAC meeting, Debbie Oakley championed this MTS issue, highlighting that a grower could have 5 Hayward tests above the MTS and then 1 test below and miss out. In this case what happens should the last test be taken on the day of harvest? It was further discussed that the rules for Hayward are not the same as Zespri SunGold where the highest result is always used. All Growers benefit from a fairer debate of these important issues.
In spite of lower dry matter – actually the fruit is in great marketable quality. Our teams have been keeping an eye on fruit firmness at ECPI and our results are actually very good, across all sites and all varieties.
And of course we are relieved that the pocket pack testing regime developed by Seeka in conjunction with Zespri, and the documented quality processes has resulted in checked fruit from potentially contaminated pocket packs being accepted for export. Our attention is on clearing our fruit, clearing other supplier’s fruit and then seeking commercial remedy from the pocket pack supplier.
Hayward Conventional
| Seeka packed trays | 5,000,600 | Industry packed trays | 15,356,015 [32.5%] |
| Seeka avge size | 32.20 | Industry avge size | 32.16 |
| Seeka loaded trays | 3,031,680 | Instore trays | 1,968,920 |
| On order | 2,018,223 |
Hayward Organic
| Seeka packed trays | 135,389 | Industry packed trays | 958,909 [14.2%] |
| Seeka avge size | 32.91 | Industry avge size | 35.13 |
| Seeka loaded trays | 27,314 | Instore trays | 108,074 |
| On order | 2,013 |
Nothing doing in Hayward organics last week it seems
| Seeka packed trays | 4,520,822 | Industry packed trays | 26,483,803 [17.0%] |
| Seeka avge size | 28.83 | Industry avge size | 30.78 |
| Seeka loaded trays | 2,733,099 | Instore trays | 1,787,724 |
| On order | 684,084 |
| Seeka packed trays | 97,568 | Industry packed trays | 435,533 [22.4%] |
| Seeka avge size | 30.22 | Industry avge size | 29.73 |
| Seeka loaded trays | 10,761 | Instore trays | 86,807 |
| On order | 2,332 |
Zespri Sweetgreen G14
| Seeka packed trays | 167,091 | Industry packed trays | 1,420,541 [11.7%] |
| Seeka avge size | 36.11 | Industry avge size | 36.19 |
| Seeka loaded trays | 74,475 | Instore trays | 492,616 |
| On order | 26,120 |
Happy and safe harvesting!
Michael
Seeka Key
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