New Zealand kiwifruit marketer Zespri says its final forecast of the 2023-24 season shows a strong return for green, organic green, SunGold and RubyRed kiwifruit.
The February forecast shows green at $9.44 a tray, which the company said is up from last season’s orchard gate return of $5.78 a tray.
Its SunGold returns are at $12.62 a tray, which the company said is up from last year’s OGR of $9.97 a tray. Organic SunGold returns are at $14.21 a tray.
Zespri said its RubyRed has forecast a record average per-try return of $26.54, which is up from last season’s figure of $22.27 OGR.
Zespri CEO Dan Mathieson said a focus on fruit quality and efficiency helped improve returns.
“The lift we’ve seen in all of our per-tray returns is a real credit to the hard work that’s taken place across the industry and throughout our global supply chain to improve quality,” Mathieson said in the release. “It’s really helped our markets to maintain strong run rates and maximize value while closing out the season with all categories other than organic SunGold kiwifruit expected to deliver record per-tray returns.”
Mathieson said the team at Zespri was pleased to see a boost in green kiwifruit returns. He noted an increased value in Europe and strong performances in Japan and North America helped secure a higher return for the company.
“We’ve also seen strong demand for SunGold kiwifruit and RubyRed kiwifruit has continued to perform strongly, which we expect to see continue as RubyRed becomes the first of this year’s crop to hit stores soon,” he said.
Zespri said it expects a crop of 193 million trays for the 2024-25 season. Mathieson said a major focus for the next season will be quality fruit.
“We know that when we get good fruit to market it sells and sells well, so continuing to focus on providing our customers and consumers with great kiwifruit throughout the season will again be our focus,” he said. “As well as the focus on per tray returns, we’re also looking forward to seeing improved per hectare returns for growers in the coming season, with our February crop estimate showing a strong improvement in expected yields.”