“Its been a whirlwind ride,” said Jamie, “With the settlement for the sale only occurring a few days before leaving to come to Hong Kong. Its certainly been an intense period – and its been a fantastic company to do business with. I have had to learn a lot about what they do and how they operate. And while we have a long way to go we have started really well and have built up a lot of goodwill between the people which is always important.”
Annmarie outlined that the combination of Seeka and BFP brought a lot of advantages. “BFP are very good growers of alternate varieties to kiwifruit and Seeka are more of a specialist kiwi grower. The two companies should do well if we can combine these strengths. The result should be an improved seamless supply of high quality fruit to our customers.”
Jamie agreed – “Its very good and from our perspective a game changer. The team is very focussed and Seeka’s plans aligned to our own but they will do in 2 years what we planned to do it 10. And as a previous owner that was one of the appealing factors for us. By virtue of being a bigger company they have a lot more resources than us which is very refreshing. Having spent so much time and effort building our orchards and business to this state it was a big emotional decision but made easier by who we have sold to. The combined operations can now offer its Australian customers a seamless year round supply whereas it wasn’t possible before. According to Jamie this is unique in Australia and quite a game changer. From a New Zealand growers perspective Seeka now has the capacity to manage the seasonal supply transition from Australian to New Zealand sourced fruit in an orderly way and to everyone's advantage."
“BFP has a successful but small export program noting that the entire kiwi production amounted to 750k trays and with a healthy local market that enjoyed his high quality great tasting fruit. There were opportunities to export more but really our focus is on our product and on our customers.”
“The great advantage of the takeover is that it provides a wider assortment of fruit for us,” explains Annmarie. “In the past we have been quite limited to kiwifruit and we branched out recently into avocados and kiwiberries, but the Australian business has pears, cherries, plums, and apricots so we now have all this other fruit and it’s really exciting. The plan is to be New Zealand’s premium produce company, we don’t want to just rely on kiwifruit. We saw with the PSA that we were quite vulnerable that if it went further we were in trouble, luckily we’ve come out of it and rebuilt the business but I think it shows everyone that to rely on one product is dangerous. We all thought we were safe with kiwifruit and we never saw it coming.”
Jamie outlined that the successful integration of the companies was a primary and immediate focus. This process had prevented the Seeka CEO, Michael Franks, from coming to Hong Kong preferring to be on the ground with the people focussing on the combination. Seeka was determined to make the purchase successful and was taking significant steps to ensure that the basics were done and done well. Each day they are quietly setting up and establishing their business operations, IT infrastructure and reporting processes. They have been careful to create as little disruption as possible and from the outside it all looks the same but actually the base business is significantly different. Quite remarkable, he said.
For more information:
Annmarie LeeSeeka Fresh
Tel: +64 7 530303
Email: annmarie.lee@seeka.co.nz
www.seeka.co.uk