The last of the 67 refrigerated charter ships for the New Zealand kiwifruit season left the Port of Tauranga this evening, marking the end of a record-breaking season.
The Asian Lily V27 is leaving for Japan with over 2000 pallets of Zespri Green Kiwifruit, headed for the ports of Tokyo and Kobe.
The Asian Lily, last of Zespri’s 67 charter vessels of the season, leaves the Port of Tauranga this afternoon with 2343 pallets of Zespri kiwifruit destined for the Japanese market. Photo by Jamie Troughton/Dscribe Media.
The 2016 NZ kiwifruit season has broken records with volumes of Zespri SunGold Kiwifruit up 68 percent from last season to 46 million trays, as vines come into full production.
Zespri Chief Operating Officer Simon Limmer says every season brings its challenges and people have worked incredibly hard across the industry to deliver another strong result. “The industry investment in infrastructure has meant that the increased SunGold volumes have been processed well this season.”
“Zespri’s in-market teams are driving sales for the last few weeks of the NZ sales season and the first sales of our Northern Hemisphere-grown SunGold are underway in Europe, with product on the water to Asia,” says Simon.
Zespri sources premium quality kiwifruit from Northern Hemisphere orchards to supply the market for the few months of the year when NZ-grown kiwifruit is not available.
“We’re on track to more than double sales revenue from nearly $2 billion last season to $4.5 billion by 2025,” says Simon.
The forecast volumes for 2016 NZ season are 80 million trays of Green, 46 million trays of SunGold and 3.8 million trays of Organic Green. Going into the Zespri Global Supply season, the volumes are forecast around 10.5 million trays of Zespri Green and 6 million trays of gold (SunGold and Gold) from Zespri’s Northern Hemisphere supplying orchards.
For more information:
Rachel Lynch
Senior Communications Advisor
Zespri International Limited
Tel: +64 7 572 7757 (Wk)
Mob: +64 27 509 1805