Thank you to our growers who attended the “After 5” sessions across the Bay of Plenty where we updated our growers on the season to date, the current issues in the Industry and growers had a chance to catch up with everyone. The next meeting is in Kerikeri on Monday evening and Coromandel on 15 August, all are invited. We are excited by the new technology we revealed to growers at that meeting which we will launch out to growers in August.
Our early avocado packing is underway in Northland for the local market, and we continue to pack citrus on contract for T&G.
Currently our kiwifruit efforts and attention is all on inventory management. Loadouts are very slow reflecting a build-up of inventory in key markets and generally softer market conditions than expected. During the season, Zespri advanced shipped some fruit to the markets to help some suppliers who had underinvested and had a shortfall of coolstore capacity. Essentially these suppliers had shipping disproportionate to their share, while others who had invested in sufficient coolstore capacity, had their loadouts constrained. Then those suppliers who were under drawn through the advanced shipping mechanism, get balanced up in the weeks after mainpack. But because the markets are so slow, and Zespri are trying to clear that product in the market, really there is a dearth of orders for loading out. Across the industry, lines that need to move are not moving and the Industry is courting a poor result. Fruit loss to date is minimal, noting that so are the orders to load fruit out! Our teams have completed their first round of pressure testing, and are closely watching the inventory.
Increasingly, “Crop Management” and “Quality Management” is being used in the language and conversations with Zespri. But this mechanism of dumping fruit clouds a much bigger issue.
Pruning is well underway. There are lots of hazards in the orchards – so please take all efforts to think about and identify the risks and keep everyone safe.
Kind regards
Michael
Seeka Key
Contacts
