KiwiBrothersTM make their China debut
Zespri has unveiled the award-winning KiwiBrothersTM mascots in China for the first time to market its large kiwifruit crop.
Zespri has switched to using mostly charter refrigerated container ships this year to get its kiwifruit to major markets, rather than relying on normal scheduled ships.
Zespri's chief global supply officer Alistair Hulbert told Rural News this is because of the ongoing disruption to world shipping schedules caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. He says Zespri normally operates a split of 50% charter and 50% schedule ships, but this year it has upped the allocation of chartered ships to 70%.
“The problem is that there has been a huge demand for imported goods into NZ and this has meant that shipping lines have focused on bringing dry as opposed to refrigerated containers down to NZ in the off season,” Hulbert explains.
“These containers are bringing things such as imported furniture and normally those ships would bring in refrigerated containers to build up a stockpile for the horticulture industry exports from February to June. So, at the moment, we are down on container stock and that is causing disruption.”
Hulbert says the other issue is that the scheduled container services often get delayed as congestion builds up in ports all around the world, meaning that these ships may arrive in NZ late. He says Zespri foresaw the problem back in September last year and quickly upped the number of charter vessels.
“With the charter vessel it comes directly into port on the day we want it, we load it with our fruit and it goes to the port of destination,” Hulbert told Rural News. So, with all our major markets – such as China, Japan, Europe and Korea – we use the chartered ships, which makes us somewhat immune to the disruption.”
However, he says other markets that aren’t big enough to send a charter vessel to – like the Middle East or the west coast of the US – so they will suffer a little bit of disruption.
“The beauty of charter vessels is that we can delay its arrival for a couple of days to make sure the boat goes out full.” he adds.
Hulbert says while the price of freight has gone up, Zespri is somewhat protected because it has long-term shipping contracts, so the price to the consumer will remain much the same and the returns to growers will not be greatly affected.
However, he says by far the greatest risk would be not having continuity of supply to consumers in major markets.
New data released by LIC and DairyNZ shows New Zealand dairy farmers have achieved the highest six week in-calf rate and lowest notin- calf rate on record.
Christchurch City Council and the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association (CAPA) have signed an agreement which will open more of Canterbury Agricultural Park for public use while helping to provide long-term certainty for the A&P Show.
This year’s Fieldays will feature a Rural Advocacy Hub - bringing together various rural organisations who are advocating for farmers and championing their interests as one team, under one roof, for the first time.
ASB head of rural banking Aidan Gent is encouraging farmers to speak to their banks when they are struggling.
Hunters around the country are hoping for some foul weather this weekend with the game bird season getting underway.
Farmers have been airing their concerns to the Government over changes to the Accredited Employer Work Visa scheme.
OPINION: The new government has clearly signalled big cuts across the public service.
OPINION: Your canine crusader is not surprised by the recent news that New Zealand plant-based ‘fake meat’ business is in…