Our instore inventory continues to perform well, particularly in the case of SunGold where losses are particularly low. Likewise Seeka’s offshore performance is good. The big issue of the moment is market access and China. The Chinese have reacted to a fungal rot called neofabraea actinidia. The rot, isn’t harmful to humans and has been in the Industry for a very long time. While AQSIS [the China border government authority] are well within their rights to react to this issue any suggestion as to the cause will be speculative by those who do not know.
The consequence is uncertainty in the market about New Zealand kiwifruit and the investor confidence in companies like Seeka. Operationally it’s very difficult; shipping has been suspended for the week while new protocols are developed for fruit destined for China. An intensive checking process has been implemented which will see 1000 fruit checked in every pallet destined for China [all varieties], and a likely 100% repack for all pallets prior to shipping to China. It’s a huge task and the auditing involved is going to make it complex. Our controlled atmosphere storage [CA] hayward inventory may provide some respite however it will need to be very clean from rots, will be heavily audited and it is unlikely that later stored CA fruit will be accepted. No CA stored SunGold can go to China. Seeka actually didn’t CA any of the SunGold fruit preferring to pack it as close to optimum maturity as possible. Zespri is moving to switch the market mix for SunGold away from China to Japan and Europe. While this is operationally sensible, a number of growers have quite rightly questioned about what impact this will have on Hayward sales rates in those markets noting that the Industry is dumping 5.2m trays of Hayward and needs improved sales rates to avoid more. It seems that nothing is straight forward this season.
On orchard – growers will be happy with a spell of fine weather to get on with pruning and certainty its got colder.
To the numbers [as at midnight 8 August]
Welcome to Turi Ngatai MNZM
Seeka is pleased to announce that Turi Ngatai has joined Seeka to work on a project supporting our Maori Grower constituency. Turi has spent a long time in the education sector as the Principal of Sunset Junior High [Mr Sunshine] and co-Chief Executive of Te Wananga O Aotearoa. Turi brings wealth of experience to our Maori relationship strategy and we are very pleased to have him join the team.
Regards
Michael
Seeka Key
Contacts
