Friday, March 29, 2024

Kiwifruit fetch record returns

Avatar photo
A late start to the kiwifruit harvest this year helped push that sector to the top of the exporting charts, reinforced by continuing growth in the export fruit’s markets globally.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Total fruit exports in June were up 30% on June last year to $110 million, with kiwifruit claiming the bulk of that at $105 million, up 47% in value and 30% in volume on last year.

The June 2016 rise was across all top kiwifruit export destinations but particularly Japan which was up $55m and China, up $39m, Statistics New Zealand said.

Those figures came as a difficult harvest period through April and May slowed fruit picking, to the point some growers were still harvesting export crop in mid-June, one of the latest harvests ever reported.

A lack of temperature differential through autumn and lower sunshine hours through summer contributed to the later harvest time.

Zespri was also forced to “crop manage” three million trays of Green export grade fruit out of exports to help maintain in-market prices and deal with the surge of larger fruit late in the picking season.

Zespri chief operating officer Simon Limmer said despite the late start to the season there had been a strong increase in sales volumes compared to the corresponding period last year.

“The growth in volume and value has been driven by a large increase in export of SunGold kiwifruit, which is proving to be a great success with consumers in our key markets around the world,” he said.

Sales and marketing programmes for both Gold and Green kiwifruit were in full swing with Green sales accelerating.

“We are working hard to deliver record volumes this year.”

The strong cross-cultural appeal of Gold kiwifruit to European and Asian palates showed no sign of abating.

Gold fruit were up 65% by value and 49% by volume while Green was up 28% in value and 21% in volume.

“Export values of kiwifruit for the months of May and June 2016 are the two highest on record.”

Jason Attewell

Statistics NZ

Zespri recently tendered its first 400ha tranche of Gold kiwifruit licences. The tender was heavily oversubscribed and averaged $170,000 a hectare to new and established growers.

“Export values of kiwifruit for the months of May and June 2016 are the two highest on record,” international statistics senior manager Jason Attewell said.

“Annual kiwifruit exports for the June 2016 year also set a new record, $1.7b, up 41% from the previous June year.”

Annual exports of all fruit were up $617m or 31% for the June 2016 year. Apples also contributed to the rise, up $130m or 23%.

The rise in fruit exports eclipsed rises in other export commodities for the June 2016 year, including forestry products, which were up $250m and meat products, up $237m.

The rise in fruit earnings also helped to offset a fall in annual exports of milk powder, butter and cheese which were down $875m.

Within the dairy exports there were contrasting movements.

Milk powder was down $1.1b or16% with little change in the quantity exported. In contrast, the values and quantities of butter, cheese and fresh milk and cream exported were all up in the year ended June 2016.

Overall, goods exports rose $109m or 2.6% in June, compared to June last year, to $4.3 billion.

 

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading