New Zealand’s kiwifruit export season has begun in earnest with the departure on Tuesday of single-desk marketer Zespri’s first shipment of fruit to Japan.
According to the company, the shipment consisted of 800,000 trays of gold kiwifruit.
Harvesting this year began in Poverty Bay in mid-March and is now underway in the Hawke’s Bay and the country’s main growing region, the Bay of Plenty.
Radio New Zealand reported the majority of the crop would be sent to markets in Asia and Europe.
Volume will be down this year, however, with vine disease Psa reducing the gold crop by a third.
According to Zespri, production this year is expected to fall by 20m trays, with further crop reductions predicted for 2013 as growers switch to new gold varieties that have shown some resistance to Psa.
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