Kiwifruit growers in New Zealand are counting the cost after a large number of Zespri Gold failed to ripen for sale in Europe and Japan.
International kiwifruit marketer Zespri said it is working to mitigate the effects on Gold growers after 300,000-400,000 trays of the fruit failed to colour up.
The unripe fruit accounted for just three per cent of Zespri's overall crop this year, and the majority of it was in Japan, with a small amount in Europe.
The news follows a recent forecast predicting growers will receive a further drop in returns on last month at some NZ$6.05 a tray - 24 cents down on the August prediction for green kiwifruit, while the figure for Gold has dropped NZ$0.18 to NZ$9 a tray.
Speculated reasons behind the maturity problem include orchard conditions and the fruit's treatment in cold stores. This season's large volumes may have resulted in an insufficient amount space to store gold and green fruit separately. Green and gold varieties need different storage temperatures and a failure to supply this could have caused a problem in the maturing process.
General strategy manager at Zespri, Lain Jager, said the company attributes the problem to maturity management or variations within maturity areas and that Zespri is working to minimise the impacts on customers and to find the problem using its integrated traceability system.
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