| 49 T T Hugh de Lacy Packing shed project opens new era A promising addition to the range of fruit processed will be red-fleshed kiwifruit, of which Birdhurst Orchards will pick its first crop next year. Tasman: Birdhurst Orchards REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT A new era opened for Nelson fruit packer-marketer Golden Bay Fruits when it opened its newly refurbished and extended packing shed for the first time this year after the completion of the pricey project. At the close of last year’s packing season the building was gutted and its footprint extended by a third and new state-of-the-art MAF RODA machinery installed. The total investment in the machinery was around $6m, while the extension added a further $3.5m to the overall project cost. “The main advantage that the new machinery and extension give us is that we can pack the same volume of fruit more efficiently, and potentially we can pack more fruit by extending the production hours or the length of the season,” says Golden Bay Fruits majority shareholder Rhys Wilkins. Rhys is also the Managing Director and owner of Birdhurst Limited, a privately-owned orchard in the Nelson-Tasman region producing apples and Zespri Gold kiwifruit, all of it supplied to Golden Bay Fruit Packers. The refurbishment is a collaborative project as Birdhurst owns the pack-house site while Golden Bay Fruit leases it and owns the equipment in the pack-house. Golden Bay Fruit has other shareholders, including Woods Orchard and Evan Heywood’s Heywood Orchards. Among the raft of new technology that the pack-house features are automated defect-sorting, box-filling and single-layer tray packing machines. “At this stage the new technology is processing only kiwifruit, but the shed has been designed to allow for a water dump installation if needed, and is otherwise fully compatible to pack both apples and pears,” Rhys says. A promising addition to the range of fruit processed will be red-fleshed kiwifruit, of which Birdhurst Orchards will pick its first crop next year. While many of the country’s primary exporters are facing depressed markets, the kiwifruit industry has just come off a season of record prices that look as if they’ll continue into 2025. “Gold kiwifruit prices in 2023-2024 were the highest for a number of years, and our new pack-house extension puts us in a position to fully benefit from them,” Rhys says. Zespri, which markets for 2800 kiwifruit growers round the country, was able to tell its suppliers this year to expect the green variety to return between $75,000 and $91,000 per canopy hectare, way up on the previous year’s $64,930/ha. Gold kiwifruit was expected to fare well too, with prices ranging between $145,000 “At this stage the new technology is processing only kiwifruit, but the shed has been designed to allow for a water dump installation if needed, and is otherwise fully compatible to pack both apples and pears.” and $166,000/ha, compared to last season’s $143,537/ha. In dollars per tray terms, green kiwifruit was the stand-out with forecast returns of $9 a tray this year compared to $5.78/tray last year. The Ruby Red variety, of which Heywood Orchards is expecting its first crop next year, returned a healthy $26.10/ tray against $22.27/ tray last year, and SunGold returns hit $12.25/ tray compared to last year’s $9.97/tray. Zespri Chief Executive Dan Mathieson said earlier this year that the boom prices reflect a strong and growing demand for Kiwifruit, coupled with the industry dealing successfully with last year’s quality issues. “We’ve received positive feedback from our customers throughout the season on the improvement in fruit quality – our efforts have been really appreciated by them – and they also keep telling us how they want even more Zespri kiwifruit next season,” he said. “It’s great to have this confidence in our product and see this demand,” he added. Rhys Wilkins and Evan Heywood endorse the optimism over kiwifruit and the generally solid outlook for pipfruit, with the latter enjoying a big production boost this year after 2023’s Cyclone Gabrielle wiped out a third of the crop in Hawke’s Bay, which usually accounts for two-thirds of the national production total. • Three Waters Engineering • River & Stream Flow Monitoring • Water Quality Monitoring • Freshwater Management • Resource Consents • Environmental Impact Assessments • Contaminated Site Assessment & Remediation 20 Stafford Drive, PO Box 25, Mapua info@envirolink.co.nz www.envirolink.co.nz • Industrial and Commercial Electricians • Fire Alarm installers • Security systems • Certified Gas Fitters • Data • Council Compliance Proudly Supporting Birdhurst Orchards +64 3-528 6250 admin@flashelectrical.co.nz
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