Please accept this report to the end of week 20 [Sunday 18 May].
We are in mainpack and full fruit flow. Last week we packed just under 400k trays of Hayward per day across the company as well as gold in Northland and Coromandel. The on-going fine weather has helped all operations to continue smoothly. There are no safety issues to report.
While fruit quality generally continues to be good, there is considerable variability between orchards. A few hail lines have created challenges at packing and we are finding soft fruit in some lines. At 16.9%, rejects in green are a little higher than an average season but reflect hail along with sooty mould, softs and shape issues. Brix’s are currently in the ideal packing range of 8-9. Loading CA stores continues.
Organic picking and packing is underway and flowing smoothly. The organic crop has been a little down on estimate this year with higher rejects and a smaller size profile than expected.
The gold harvest in Northland is now completed and once packing is completed the shed will switch to Hayward. Likewise gold and G9 in Coromandel are close to finishing before the final push on Hayward.
The statistics as at End Wk 20
Hayward
Seeka Packed: 8,998,522 trays Industry 34,657,486 trays [Seeka = 26.0%]
Average reject rate: 16.95% Average size 32.81
In store 4,165,193 trays
On order week 21 521,142 trays
On order week 22 385,069 trays
Seeka shipped all the pre week 15 fruit out by the end of week 19 as contractually required. We now have only 123k trays left to move by the end of week 24 – the next contractual hurdle. Nice and orderly. The inventory build is underway and we are still well within our coolstore capacity.
Hayward Organic
Seeka packed : 416,365 trays Industry 1,745,247 trays [Seeka 23.9%]
Average reject rate: 26.46% Average size 35.00
In store: 47,066 trays
On order week 21 49,871 trays
On order week 22 42,188 trays
Hayward organic packout has now commenced for the run to completion.
Hort16a
Seeka packed : 357,107 trays Industry 5,519,148 trays [Seeka 6.5%]
Average reject rate: 15.38% Average size 31.93
In store: 163,518 trays
On order week 21 18,773 trays
On order week 22 18,987 trays
The 16a gold crop actually has been very good. Reject rates to date quite clean and nearly all fruit harvest at protocol N.
G3
Seeka packed : 1,111,810 trays Industry 10,713,541 trays [Seeka 10.4%]
Average reject rate: 15.38% Average size 31.93
In store: 706,594 trays
On order week 21 91,361 trays
On order week 22 57,773 trays
Orders remain slow.
G9
Seeka packed : 158,690 trays Industry 1,646,251 trays [Seeka 9.6%]
Average reject rate: 17.39% Average size 30.46
In store: 149,529 trays
On order week 21 11,464 trays
On order week 22 6,594
For the record we have shipped 2,847 trays at the end of last week. Orders are slow. [I apologise for transposing my figures last week!]
G14
Seeka packed : 116,410 trays Industry 936,622 trays [Seeka 12.4%]
Average reject rate 20.31% Average size 36.08
In store: 47,066 trays
On order week 21 3,414 trays
On order week 22 0 trays
Last week I reported “we are in the home straight for G14” but I underestimated the length of that drive to the end.
The Newspaper
Having read the paper this morning, and been reasonably annoyed by the misleading nature of the article, I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you the facts in relation to the seasonal labour force, contractors and auditing. Hopefully I can put to bed some of the many rumours floating around about Seeka.
1. In November of last year an orchard contractor who was working for a different company on a non-Seeka supplying orchard was found to be non-compliant in their employment processes. That contractor had worked for Seeka 6 months earlier in May 2013 on a short term picking assignment during harvest. We had given that contractor a precursory audit and he had passed. We now know that that audit was deficient.
2. As a result of that issue last November, Seeka was advised that we needed to ensure that all contractors and sub-contractors who work for Seeka need to be compliant with employment, safety and eligibility to work regulations. This is also a requirement of our RSE accreditation and in fact no contractors involved with RSE’s are in any way implicated in any of this. As a result of the erroneous audit in May last year 15 RSE’s were cut from our 2014 quota and consequently those 15 people have remained in the Pacific Islands.
3. Our first company response was to have a meeting with all principal contractors to Seeka and we followed his up with a meeting with all our sub-contractors. These meetings were simply to go over all the necessary government requirements with them to ensure that everyone had a good understand of the regulations.
4. At Seeka we make every effort to have a good relationship with our contracting community. While these people are running their own businesses we understand that we are part of the picture. We reviewed the picking rates to ensure that all parties could earn at least the minimum wage and the Seeka Growers Council in turn approved these changes.
In consultation with the contractor principals, Seeka employed three new staff to help our contractors meet the regulations. This team have developed standard form contracts, met with every contractor and sub-contractor and assisted them to understand all of the requirements.
Our aim was to assist contractors. For example, we provide a service whereby we check the eligibility of people to work in New Zealand and provide a “Seeka Eligible Card” that shows that person has been through the process. This is just one example of working with the contractors to everyone’s benefit. We have also provided a thorough auditing process to ensure our contractors meet the required standards.
5. Last week no less than 10 people came to Seeka from MBIE and audited the contractors working for us. We had a very good result and I compliment all those involved for their efforts. It wasn’t perfect but not far from it. It is our understanding that there were 18 improvement notices issued. An improvement notice covers things such as paying holiday pay “as you go” when the contract says it will pay be paid at the end of the seasonal employment.
In one case there was a worker employed by a contractor who had a visa to work in New Zealand but for a specific role at another company. This person had actually provided the contractor with false information and a false signature. We understand that that person has been issued with a Deportation Liability Notice. There were a couple of other minor visa issues tidied up on site.
In a separate instance one contractor was audited by MBIE personnel and found to be compliant - only to have it discovered the next day that he had another gang working for a different post-harvest company which was non-compliant. We have stood that contractor down from Seeka even though he was, and is, compliant in his dealings with us.
6. We employ several thousand seasonal workers. Any suggestion that Seeka has acted inappropriately is manifestly wrong and is an injustice to the efforts our staff have made in this area. Our contractor community has been cooperative and compliant throughout and they have all taken a huge step forward in implementing robust systems which can be readily audited. Rather than smearing their reputation we should be applauding their efforts. At Seeka we have acted responsibly, proactively and professionally throughout, paper articles notwithstanding.
Kind Regards
Michael
Seeka Key
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