Excellent Start To The NZ Kiwifruit Season

11 April 2007

Excellent Start To The NZ Kiwifruit Season

Ideal weather conditions and excellent fruit quality are heralding a superb 2007 season start for the New Zealand kiwifruit industry. Kiwifruit-growing regions throughout the North Island are abuzz as picking gangs move through orchards and packhouse activity ramps up. “We got away to an early start this season and we’re slightly ahead of where we were at this time last year with almost 8 million trays of ZESPRI™ GREEN and GOLD Kiwifruit packed so far, compared with around 7 million in 2006,” said Lain Jager, General Manager Supply Chain.

“In addition, fruit quality is exceeding expectations with good taste characteristics. Our marketing teams in Asia and Europe are gearing up for product to start arriving next week, and our customers and consumers are eagerly anticipating the arrival of great tasting, high quality New Zealand kiwifruit.”

The post-harvest sector is in full swing and for many the investment in efficiency improvements is starting to pay off. “We’ve got a full team onboard now and commenced full day and night shifts this week,” said James Trevelyan, Operations Manager for Te Puke-based Trevelyan’s Pack & Cool. “We’ve been able to get a lot more volume through earlier than we did last year and we’re pleasantly surprised about the good quality of fruit coming through.” Trevelyen’s are one of many post-harvest facilities to have invested significantly in additional resources to improve efficiencies. “Our new campground and backpackers have been well received and our new coolstorage facilities are coming on stream now,” said Mr Trevelyan.

“With over 550 people plus contractors, and with a culturally diverse workforce of over 10 different nationalities, the challenge for us now is to ensure we continue to work efficiently to maintain the high standards that our customers expect.” One way ZESPRI builds customer expectations is through its inbound tour programme. A key aspect of the overall marketing mix, the programme helps enhance customer loyalty by connecting key customers with New Zealand’s unique environment and the people who produce and handle ZESPRI™ Kiwifruit. In the past few months ZESPRI, the post-harvest sector and kiwifruit growers have hosted a large number of influential international customers, with many commenting on the high quality of the fruit on the vines, creating positive market anticipation for early fruit. Page 2 of 2

The first of the early fruit departed New Zealand’s shores for Tokyo aboard the Asian Lavender on Tuesday last week, and ten more ships are set to depart over the next two weeks destined for ZESPRI’s key markets of Japan, Europe, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Included in this group is the maiden voyage of the MV Star Best, an impressive new reefer vessel which will depart for Zeebrugge, Belgium, on Saturday 14 April, laden with thousands of pallets of high quality New Zealand kiwifruit.

ZESPRI Shipping Manager Mike Knowles said, “This is the first year we’ve been able to despatch two ships to Europe this early in the season, and we’re delighted that one of these will be the brand new MV Star Best.” Mr Knowles said the MV Star Best is the third of four new specialised refrigerated vessels that Star Reefers is building, the first of which, the MV Star First, was used by ZESPRI last season to cut down the transit time to market and improve refrigeration efficiencies.

The first ships are set to arrive in Europe and Asia to capitalise on the early season marketing programmes. The promotions will include television commercials, billboards and magazine advertising, in-store promotions and consumer competitions, nutritional campaigns in schools and strong public relations focusing on the health and nutrition values of ZESPRI™ Kiwifruit.

ENDS

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