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Zespri’s Dave Courtney.
Zespri says it’s excited about another strong season shaping up for the kiwifruit industry.
The chief grower and alliances officer, David Courtney, says this season started a little earlier and the industry is right into harvest now.
He told Hort News that for the first time ever they are expecting to supply more SunGold than Green. Latest estimates are 75 million trays of SunGold and slightly fewer than 75m trays of Green.
“The dry weather in most growing regions has created some uncertainty on fruit sizing, but we’re expecting a great tasting crop,” Courtney says.
“Our first vessel has taken fruit to Japan and China, our two biggest markets. We’ll export 600,000 pallets of kiwifruit and use 18,000 containers and 45 charter vessels to transport our fruit to Asia, Europe and the Mediterranean.”
Courtney says the early feedback from the markets has been positive.
As we move into the late-summer and autumn period, much of the country’s fruit growing regions are entering operationally critical windows of the horticultural calendar. The question on grower’s minds is ‘what is the outlook for the March-April harvest?’
Good news for kiwifruit growers - a record crop with forecast per hectare returns at record levels for all fruit categories for the 2025-26 season.
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) Director General Ray Smith is giving a big shout-out to the horticulture sector, especially kiwifruit.
Zespri’s counter-seasonal Zespri Global Supply (ZGS) programme is underway with approximately 33 million trays, or 118,800 tonnes, expected this year from orchards throughout France, Italy, Greece, Korea, and Japan.
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