"It was not without its headaches," explains Franks. "But we had good volumes, 26.4 million class 1 trays compared to last year's 20 million. We finished harvesting 3 days later than last year. Next year we are looking at increasing up to 28-29 million cartons, all going well. Of course the harvest season started with a major fire at our major processing site Oakside where Seeka packed more than 9.4 million trays. There was a huge effort to repair and rebuild the site and some significant work around as a result."
There were a couple of reasons for the big increase in volumes according to Franks, "Firstly, the Sun Gold variety came into production this season, increasing from last year's 1 million cartons to 3.8 million. The Haywards also had a tremendous run, from an estimated 17.5m we actually packed 20.8m. Growers, especially in the Te Puke area, had a stellar run and the yields very high."
The market has remained good but some of the kiwi has inevitably had to be sold to markets with less returns after the best markets were filled. The Asian market is a growing one, and as well their Australian markets and a program with Zespri, Seeka are increasing sales in China.
Last year Seeka bought Glassfields, a New Zealand based retail services provider which added a number of new products to Seeka's repertoire, "As well as being well positioned in the retail services sector in NZ, Glassfields provides high quality produce, seven days a week to retail chains. We now import bananas, pineapples and papaya, as well as handling bananas for retailers and providing them ripened. And for the first time Seeka has supplied kiwifruit and avocados direct to retail in New Zealand as a result of the acquisition."
For more information:
Michael Franks
Seeka Kiwi Industries Ltd.
Tel: +64 7 573 0303
Email: mfranks@seeka.co.nz