Welcome to the week 30 update. Inventory continues to perform well. Fruit loss remains low and our offshore performance, particularly in SunGold, is exceptional. It is a better year for Seeka.
Rain continues to hamper momentum in winter pruning with fine days seemingly few and far between.
Early market reports are starting to flow through from Zespri. Very much it is a tale of two varieties. SunGold continues to sell well. In this variety pricing is similar to last year in spite of significantly higher volumes. And at the end of week 28, Zespri only had to sell 16.5m trays representing approximately 35% of the total crop. Hayward organic has sold well however the price is weaker by 7.2% - with 2.4m trays to sell and this is at a similar level to the same time last year. Hayward conventional however is another story. After a later start, sales, while picking up, have been slower than necessary to sell the crop through in the desired timeframe and the Industry still has some 67% of the crop to sell [some 54m trays!]. Pricing is weaker by 6.1% and Zespri had previously indicated that they will be unable to market the entire crop for economic return with 3m trays already having been dumped from the inventory. This will be now increased by a further 2.2m trays bringing the total industry volume removed from inventory to 5.2m trays. Sales rates will need to pick up even further and exceed last years, if there is not to be further inventory management.
In a nutshell – it means that Hayward returns will be down significantly on last year. Some growers may have increased crop volumes and yield, but our estimates are that for those growers who grew the same crop as last year, orchard returns could be down by as much as 17.5%.
To the numbers [as at midnight 31 July]
Changes at Seeka
Bryan Grafas has signalled his intention to retire from the Company after 27 years’ service having been with Seeka since the beginning. He will leave us to go and pursue his own orchards and business interests but will still stay working with Seeka as required. Rightly, he is proud of the accomplishments he has made at Seeka and we will celebrate with him on 15 September upstairs at the Tect Arena Baypark from 4pm. This is an open invitation and if you would like to attend please contact Steph Kivell at stephaniek@seeka.co.nz or ring Annie on 5730303.
Bryan has been replaced by Simon Wells who will take the role of General Manager Orchards. And we are working through a process now to appoint a person to lead our grower relationship team. Announcements will be made about that appointment once we get there.
Regards
Michael
Seeka Key
Contacts
