Poor quality fruit arriving on overseas markets, coupled with labor shortages, are forcing kiwifruit marketer Zespri to limit how much gold fruit it wants to handle a few years from now.
Zespri controls how many hectares of SunGold kiwifruit can be planted each year, and it could have released between 350-700 hectares in 2023. In past years, 700ha of gold license has been released; last year that was cut back to 350ha.
According to Zespri executive officer Carol Ward, a conservative approach was being taken again this year with 350ha up for grabs. The new licensed area will have fruit ready for export in about three years' time.
Ms Ward said: "We know that we've got really strong market demand in the global market, but here in New Zealand has been challenging with the labor shortages and constraints through the whole supply chain, that a more conservative license release position was required.”
"This year we have seen quality issues in the market, brought about by the labor shortages and we didn't handle it as well as we should have. So we are focusing on improving quality for our customers this year so we would expect to see in two or three years when that fruit (from next year's License release) becomes available, that our quality problems have been well understood.”
Ms Ward said 200 of the 350 hectares of gold license on offer will be sold to orchardists planning to convert current green orchards to gold.
Source: rnz.co.nz
