The first of this season's green and gold kiwifruit will set sail from Tauranga tomorrow aboard the Sasanqua bound for Japan.

The kiwifruit from the Bay of Plenty and Gisborne will share space on the reefer vessel with squash exports from Poverty Bay as it makes its way to Japan.

Graders check the quality of the first of the season's green kiwifruit before it is packed at Aongatete Coolstores near Katikati.

Zespri spokesman David Courtney says fruit size is mixed.

'Some orchards are reporting good size fruit, others slightly smaller. The reality is we are still six weeks from the main harvest and packing part of the season so it is too early to make general comment on the crop's size profile.

'Early harvest orchards with larger fruit sizes are being selected for picking. The period of rain last week is already having a positive impact on fruit size. We expect this to be a high-taste year, which is great for driving repeat purchases in the market.

David says he expects strong demand for Zespri kiwifruit this season.

'The arrival of Zespri in to market will be supported by point-of-sale materials, promotions, road shows and sampling events.”

Allan Dawson of Aongatete Coolstores says the early fruit from the Katikati area is smaller than last season, but has high dry matter, which is an indication of good taste.

Packing began on Monday as the facility geared up to meet the first shipment. Next week the first shipments for Korea and Taiwan and Europe are scheduled to sail from Tauranga.

Because of high daytime temperatures, reducing the heat of fruit has been more of a challenge than in other years and Aongetete has been using a pre-cooling system to bring temperatures down before fruit goes into the coolstore.

Packhouse manager Clive Exelby says the post-harvest facility will be operating throughout Easter to keep up with the harvest on orchards as they gain clearance to pick under Zespri's Kiwistart programme.

Overseas workers are again part of the picking and packing team, but numbers are down on previous seasons because of higher unemployment in New Zealand.

The 110 RSE workers come from Tonga, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and East Malaysia and 80 per cent have worked for Aongatete in the past.