“While it’s still early, the crop is looking excellent and there’s a lot of excitement and optimism in the industry," he said. “That excitement is shared by our customers who are keenly anticipating having a lot more kiwifruit to meet the strong demand we’re seeing across our markets.”
Mathieson said managing the increased volume of fruit throughout the supply chain and delivering consistently good quality fruit was the key consideration in the industry’s season planning process.
“We’re trying to make sure we’re striking the right balance of having a good source of early season fruit to capitalize on early-season sales opportunities, and having fruit that stores well so that we can have a consistent flow of fruit through the season and minimize late season quality issues,” he said.
Mathieson added that Zespri was closely monitoring the disruption to international shipping though Zespri was not affected by the disruption in the Red Sea, instead shipping via the Panama Canal.
The Kiwi Brothers would again be a central piece of this season’s marketing activities to help move fruit quickly.
“Our marketing teams have been working really hard on developing a number of great campaigns based around our award-winning Kiwi Brothers to ensure we’re able to keep our sales rates up throughout the year. After a tough couple of years there’s a lot of excitement about the year ahead and we’re well prepared as we get the season started through harvest over the coming weeks,” said Mathieson.
