An oversupply of small early season kiwifruit has led to Zespri changing its Kiwi Start grower payment structure to encourage orchardists to supply more large fruit.
The decision was made this week at a meeting between Zespri, post harvest operators and New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc.
NZKGI president Peter Ombler says the aim of the changes is to dissuade people with small size fruit to stop picking; persuade those with bigger fruit to pick; and encourage people with medium sized fruit to selectively pick large fruit first and leave smaller fruit to be harvested later.


The kiwifruit season has started early but the average fruit size so far has been smaller than hoped, leading to a change in payment structure.

Zespri director of corporate and grower services Carol Ward says the average count size Zespri is aiming for is count 33 (fruit per tray), but the average to date this season has been 35.17.
The problem is not so much average fruit size but average fruit weight, says NZKGI CEO Mike Chapman.
"An average increase in four grams across the size profile can be significant," says Carol.
Peter says challenging weather conditions combined with management techniques are behind the amount of small fruit.
"We have had a very, very unusual growing season, which dates back to the start of last winter."
The Bay of Plenty experienced the coldest June-July for about 50 years, which meant the vines went into dormancy and also set them up for a strong floral bud break.
An 'extremely warm' August-September then wakened the vines early, but this was followed by an 'incredibly cold' October. This summer has also been the driest in many years, directly affecting fruit size and weight.
"The crop is remarkably uniform really."
Peter says kiwifruit will respond quickly to rainfall in terms of weight increases, however, heavy rain is likely to cause storage issues.
Under the new payment structure, growers that pick small fruit will receive a lower return than initially expected, says Peter. For example, the smallest kiwifruit count size of 42 will earn no Kiwi Start premium. The same amount of Kiwi Start premium payments will still be made overall, however, the distribution will be different.
He advises growers to have a good understanding of their fruit size profile before harvesting and to maintain good communication with their packhouse.
As Zespri's premium market, Carol says Japan will have 'the pick of the crop', with the company working hard to meet this market's demands in terms of size profile.
"Europe has accepted a higher proportion of smaller size fruit they didn't want it to build up."
Preventing a build-up of small fruit in Europe is one of the reasons Zespri decided to make the move to change the payment structure.