Zespri should know within 24 hours the nature of the lubricant found on some of its kiwifruit tray liners, which has caused 1.7 million trays of fruit to be put on hold, says Zespri's chief operating officer Simon Limmer.

The bulk of that fruit is still in New Zealand with relatively small volumes on the water heading for markets in China, Taiwan and Japan.

Some sort of lubricant has been identified on kiwifruit tray liners. File photo.

'The important thing is that none of this fruit is available to the public,” says Simon.

The contamination, caused by what is believed to be mechanical lubricant or grease which has leaked from packaging machinery in a Chinese factory, has only been identified on less than 0.01 per cent of pocket packs at this stage.

'We have product in various other pack types, so this will not impact on the supply of fruit in markets.”

Simon says markets are being kept informed of the precautionary measures and he believes customers will be pleased Zespri's quality control systems have picked up the potential issue.

The problem with the trays was detected in a pack house where trays and liners were being assembled and once it was discovered, Zespri took action.

Fruit currently on route to markets will be checked and repacked there.

'Any fruit which has come into contact with the lubricant will be destroyed.”

Simon says it's too early to say what the cost of repacking or destroying fruit off-shore, or unloading it from a vessel at the Port of Tauranga this week will be, nor who will meet those costs.

'We need to work through the implications and decide what to do next.”

The 2016 harvest has got off to a slow start, with fruit taking time to reach harvest quality because of continuing mild temperatures.

However, the industry is expecting a record crop and the volumes affected by the lubricant issue represents around one percent of the total forecast volume for 2016.

Zespri is ensuring no product in potentially affected packaging reaches the marketplace and has suspended the supply and use of pocket packs from the single affected manufacturing plant.

Zespri sources pocket packs from a range of suppliers which manufacture in Chile, China and NZ.

Zespri is working with its suppliers to ensure sufficient supply of packaging materials for the 2016 season and is confident of securing this supply.

While there may be some delay to customer deliveries in some markets, Zespri does not anticipate these actions having a material impact on the 2016 season.

This decision to put the fruit on hold was made in line with Zespri's long-standing commitment to provide customers with healthy and safe-to-eat kiwifruit.