Seeka Kiwifruit Industries has packed a record 26.3m Class 1 export trays over the 2015 New Zealand kiwifruit harvest, a considerable improvement on the 20m Class 1 trays the company handled in 2014.
The total volume of Hayward packed or in store for this season is 21.8m trays, compared to 18.1m last year, while gold volumes totalled 4.3m trays, up on 1.7m trays in 2014. Seeka’s total kiwifruit packout for 2015 (all classes) is expected to exceed 27.4m trays, up from 24.944mtrays last year.
Seeka chief executive Michael Franks said that the packout volumes are likely to have a positive impact on earnings but cautioned that there is still a large amount of fruit in storage that needs to be sold.
Franks added that the season had not been without its challenges, with a fire causing wide-spread damage at the company’s Oakside post-harvest facility. This site was still able to handle over 9m trays in 2015.
Seeka’s own orchard operations faired well over the season, with plantings on long-term leases doing especially well following a significant investment in their redevelopment. In total, production on long-term leases yielded 928,000 trays in 2015, well up on the 441,000 trays produced in 2014.
