Favourable weather and well co-ordinated post-harvest operations mean that almost 100 per cent of the SunGold kiwifruit harvest is now complete, with in excess of 25.3 million trays picked and packed.

Blair Hamill, Zespri's general manager supply chain, says the season got off to a slightly slow start, but the post-harvest operators have done 'a tremendous job”.

Photo: File.

'This is not an early maturing year for gold fruit, which put more pressure on the industry and constrained supplies early on,” explains Blair.

'This lead to a minor delay in the departure of the first vessel carrying fruit to market, but since then all vessels have got away fully loaded and on time.”

Blair says the industry will not compromise on quality and fruit has to reach specified maturity levels before it can be harvested and exported. However, after the slightly slow start, the harvest quickly gained momentum.

By late last week, 60 per cent, or 2.6 million trays of the gold variety Hort16A had been harvested from regions outside the Bay of Plenty, including the South Island, Northland and Gisborne. Very little of the fruit, which is susceptible to the vine disease Psa, remains in the Bay.

Around 1.3 million trays of the new sweet green variety G14 have been harvested and 900,000 trays of the late gold variety G9 have also been picked.

A small shipment of a new red kiwifruit has been sent to Singapore, but this variety is not yet in commercial production.

With the gold harvest virtually complete, the focus is on Hayward green, with 28 per cent or 21 million trays harvested so far. 'The crop is of good size and at count 32.8 is a bigger profile than last year,” adds Blair.

'This is a good looking crop and we are expecting high, Class I pack-outs with record yields for many growers.

'The green harvest was at the same point as this last year and we are on track to finish picking around the middle of June.”

By late last week, 18 of the 55 vessels Zespri will charter this season had sailed, with eight heading to Europe and 10 to Taiwan, China and Japan.

Zespri also ships kiwifruit in containers and this year expects to send 8500 containers overseas - up on the 6500 sent last year.