Record avocado harvest for New Zealand

A record breaking season for New Zealand avocados has seen 4.5 million 5.5kg trays leave the country bound for Australia (71%), the USA (14%), Japan (7%) and other Asian destinations including Singapore, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand (8%). “4.5 million trays is a record. The previous season it was 3.1 million trays, and the previous record was 3.7 million,” says Stephen Trickett, Marketing Director for Just Avocados Ltd.

 

The season is finishing next week, thanks to a warm summer. “At Just Avocados we usually run some late Australian market programs, even into April, but this year we shut off a little earlier,” says Mr Trickett. “An earlier finish is largely to do with the fact it was a hot January resulting in the fruit maturing quite quickly, plus the earlier emergence of domestic Shepard variety in greater volume.” 

 

The fact that January was unseasonably hot meant that although there was a lot of quite large, quality fruit produced over the 26-27 week season, the oil content and dry matter of the fruit had to be monitored carefully. As the fruit starts to colour it signals that the season needs to be concluded a little earlier, according to Mr Trickett.

 

While Australia received the majority of exports from the New Zealand industry, Mr Trickett also attributes the success in selling to other markets to the AVANZA joint venture, a collaboration of three major exporters who collectively handle around 80% of the crop. “Avanza was set up to operate in markets outside of Australia, so it’s a significant part of our strategy in terms of successfully selling to countries other than Australia,” adds Mr Trickett. “It provides discipline in fruit flow and pricing, enabling us to manage where fruit goes. We’ve sent a good chunk of fruit to the USA, indeed AVANZA undertook 100% of exports there in order to protect and underpin the premium Australian market. It’s all about optimising the result for the total pie and how you carve it up.” 

 

The continuation of the Avanza Joint Venture is about developing and ensuring solid customer relations worldwide, and easing the pressure on the Australian market in years of abundant supply “We need to spread our net a little bit further,” says Mr Trickett. “The values were generally pretty good. We had a reasonably full weekly volume through the main season but still achieved pretty good pricing in Australia, as in most markets.” That was also helped by the Aussies having a shorter crop versus forecast, and continued growth in demand and per capita consumption, he adds.

The main difficulties were the exchange rate and strong NZD, Mr Trickett confirmed. “You face a headwind in terms of when you convert.” Shipping schedule delays linked to congestion at the port of Long Beach also impacted on delivery time to the USA and Australia. 

 

In tray equivalents this year’s avocado crop for New Zealand was about 7 million 5.5kg trays, according to Mr Trickett. About 64-65% of that was exported, with the remainder going to the domestic market or processing outlets.

For more information:

Stephen Trickett, Marketing Director

Phone: +6475493027

E-mail: steve@globalfresh.co.nz 

Website: www.globalfresh.co.nz