Over the past week the majority of the crop has been harvested with some regions having now completed their mainpack packing programme. There remain 12K trays of the Hayward conventional and 115K trays of Hayward organic which are still to achieve the MTS.
Crop volumes have come in lower than estimate. The total Hayward crop now looks to be in the range of 62m and 64m trays, a startling reduction on the yield that last year delivered 92m trays before crop management.
The industry has not agreed the commercial terms for those growers who have crop between last year’s MTS and the 2017 MTS threshold and we have yet to hear back from Kiwifruit New Zealand on the actual legality of the mechanism and minimum threshold. It was also startling that the majority of remaining Hayward conventional orchards reported last week, below the MTS, cleared on the same day. For those with fruit not cleared there is uncertainty around the branding [whether the Zespri fruit label and box should be used or the Family Kiwi fruit label and box], whether the grower should get a TZG payment for fruit below the 2017 MTS and should there be a loyalty payment for this fruit. And while we wait for this the fruit pressures are starting to drop.
Zespri has sent us the latest market reports. These reports outline the performance and pricing of each variety by market and give us a gauge on how the markets are performing. Also we have been receiving quality reports outlining how fruit presented on your behalf by Seeka is out turning in the market [noting that Seeka supplied well beyond its market share through the early stages of the harvest]. Simply the market reports are very positive, fruit quality has improved after initial concerns. Pricing is good aided by a large size profile. Market returns, [ noting that the fruit on average is larger] are well up with Hayward net price up 27.2%, SunGold up 39.2%, Hayward organic up 4.6% and G14 Sweetgreen down 7.4%, the only decliner. These market returns, if they can be sustained, bode well for grower returns. Growers should reasonably expect OGRs substantially up in the conventional varieties, above $6 per tray for Hayward conventional and above $9 for SunGold.
To the numbers: [to midnight Sunday 11 June]
SunGold [CN&OB]
| Industry Packed Trays | 52,892,993 | Seeka Packed | 8,648,114 |
| Seeka Loaded Trays | 5,313,644 | In Store Trays | 3,333,940 |
| On Order Trays | 564,546 | Average size to date | 26.22 |
WOW 60% Shipped
Hayward Conventional
| Industry Packed Trays | 61,279,065 | Seeka Packed | 14,474,101 |
| Seeka Loaded Trays | 7,300,146 | In Store Trays | 7,173,955 |
| On Order Trays | 447,596 | Average size to date | 28.99 |
Mainpack harvest nearly about complete
Hayward Organic
| Industry Packed Trays | 2,111,946 | Seeka Packed | 567,152 |
| Seeka Loaded Trays | 271,142 | In Store Trays | 296,009 |
| On Order Trays | 61,465 | Average size to date | 33.61 |
Industry is only 70%, 926,000 trays remaining to pack
Technical issues
Last week individual grower forecasts were sent out, however a number of growers did not receive their forecast by email. Spark’s migration of Xtra email accounts from Yahoo to SMX entailed a change to the spam filter used for emails. This change has resulted in the rejection of Seeka’s automated emails as spam. The rejection of these emails affects recipients of SGL forecasts and payment advices as well as invoicing from Seeka Limited. This issue affects other businesses sending legitimate automated emails, not just Seeka. Despite our IT team’s efforts we are unable to resolve this issue ourselves as we are not the account holders for the affected Xtra email accounts. The fix for this issue is for individual account holders to contact the Xtra helpdesk to have Seeka added to the “whitelist” for that account. A whitelist is a list of entities from which communications can be trusted. Addition of Seeka to the account’s whitelist will enable the account to receive automated emails from Seeka.
What Growers can do to ensure that they continue to receive automated emails from Seeka:
Safe harvesting, and clearing up the technical challenges if you have them.
Regards
Michael
Seeka Key
Contacts