Bay of Plenty kiwifruit company DMS is ramping up its cool store and pack house facilities in response to increasing volumes of the new gold kiwifruit variety.

Due to the successful conversion of G3 in the Bay of Plenty's post-Psa environment, industry-wide fruit production is set to increase to more than 50 million trays over the next three years.

The two DMS pack houses will begin 24 hour operation this season.

To address this exponential growth in the variety marketed as SunGold, DMS is increasing its cool store facilities by a further 2,800 pallets, which will be ready for 2015.

The company is also increasing its pack house operations to 24-hours a day, seven days a week, to ensure growers will have their fruit packed at the optimum time.

Chief operating officer Derek Masters says DMS remains well placed to handle the increased volume.

Derek says: 'DMS has always been a firm advocate for G3 in the post-Psa environment, championing the variety as the road to recovery when many were lacking the confidence to try something new.

'We are now seeing that recovery come to fruition, which is extremely exciting for the industry.

'We are well advanced in our planning to address the increase in fruit volumes over the next three seasons, which will enable us to continue our exceptional service delivery to growers and address industry concerns around post-harvest capacity.

'This will be achieved through increased packing and cool store capacity, a strong management structure and culture supported by experienced staff, combined our with unique operating systems that produce number one fruit loss results amongst Bay of Plenty post-harvest operators.”

In the 2014 season DMS recorded a 0.037 per cent onshore fruit loss on Zespri's 2014 scorecard for the G3 variety, compared to the industry average of 1.15 per cent.

This is on the back of 2013's similar results. DMS has consistently ranked in the first quartile for onshore fruit loss across all varieties over the past four years within the Bay of Plenty.

'One of our core company values is on operating with a constant customer focus, meaning we consistently strive towards increasing profit for growers,” adds Derek.

'This has been our brand promise for many years. As a result, our growers achieve some of the highest Orchard Gate Returns in the industry, both per tray and per hectare.

'Our exceptional results come down to working together across our two pack house sites in terms of seamless processes, and open communication between our growers and staff.

'Our growers have an open invitation into our pack houses to watch their fruit being graded and packed to ensure transparency around practices and quality.”