NZ: Kiwifruit grower wants Zespri to focus on green variety
“During the next three years, while we wait for new variety volumes to grow, the focus should be on strategies which will increase the Hayward green per tray return to at least $5.50, up from a forecast of $4.60.”
Robert is standing as a grower director candidate against current board chairman Peter McBride in the Zespri elections on July 24.
“Zespri is a winner when it comes to returns of $7 a tray to gold growers but $120 million a year has been lost for green growers. More green fruit needs to be moved out of Europe to the higher paying markets in Asia.”
He says Zespri can achieve improved returns for green growers by implementing three strategies, each worth $35million in returns. Adopting just one should raise green returns to $5.50 a tray.
His other suggestions include installation of satellite monitors on every pallet of fruit to prioritise sale of that which is most ripe, the phasing out of the Zespri re0packing facility at Zeebrugge, which costs between $6 and $8 million per year to run and reduced payments from green growers to the post harvest industry.
Zespri’s commission should also cover green promotion costs, says Robert.
“Green growers pay 95 cents per tray for promotion on a product, which earns just above $4. As a comparison, an avocado grower pays 65 cents export promotion on a product worth just below $20. Green growers could pay a commission that covers promotion costs too, saving $60 million.”
Robert is also critical of Kiwifruit New Zealand, the body set up in 1999 when legislation was enacted giving Zespri the sole right to export New Zealand Kiwifruit to all markets except Australia.
“Kiwifruit New Zealand’s roles include ‘mitigating the potential costs and risks arising from the Zespri monopsony (single buyer) and that includes promoting sustained downward pressure on Zespri Group Ltd’s costs’. It hasn’t done that and it should be doing so.”
Source: sunlive.co.nz
