EastPack is not making any knee-jerk redundancies before a better picture of next year's kiwifruit crop volume is available.

Its chief executive, Tony Hawken, says as the biggest supplier of Gold kiwifruit to Zespri, EastPack is predicting a significant Gold crop reduction due to Psa, but has no plans to cut permanent staff.

'EastPack is not looking to make any decisions about redundancies until probably December, January, until we get an understanding of where the actual potential 2012 tray numbers are.

'We're going out to our staff and saying we're not going to have any knee-jerk reactions until we know what sort of volumes are going to be coming through the door next harvest season.”

Kiwifruit company Seeka recently announced 37 redundancies in reaction to the Psa disease spreading in the Bay of Plenty.

Katikati packhouse Apata says they also have no plans to make redundancies.
Tony says it's an extremely difficult time for packhouse staff and growers and for everybody concerned in the industry.
'From been an industry that was catering for a long term increase in value and growth, we're now having to turn around and face the reality, well, that that's not going to happen and we're probably going to have a significant decrease in volumes and how do we best structure the industry to handle those types of volumes.
'That's really the big picture.”

Tony says it is probably the seasonal workers that are going to be most affected.

EastPack employees 125 full-time staff and more than 1500 seasonal workers during the peak across its three locations in Te Puke, Edgecumbe and Opotiki.

'Certainly, the people that will feel it the most will be our seasonal employees.
'EastPack is not carrying large overheads of staff. If we have an increase in volume we've accrued appropriately, so we don't have a large number of people who are maybe ‘surplus' to requirements in terms of if there is a tray volume reduction.
Tony says as well has not having a lot of ‘surplus staff' EastPack is not heavily involved in leasing orchards, 'which some of the other guys are”, which puts them in a stronger position.

EastPack supplied 8.5 million Gold trays and 12.6 million Green trays this year.

'Certainly from an EastPack point of view, like the rest of the industry, it's extremely worrying times with the obvious the, I dare the say, potentially major reduction in Gold hectares and volume going forward.
'And EastPack is the biggest supplier of Gold to Zespri, so we're obviously very concerned about the ramifications.”

But Tony says there are 'focused on the now”.

'We don't have what I'd call an immediate issue and we're really focused on trying to make sure we maximise what we've got this year – 2011 was a huge crop year, myself and the board are not prepared to cut any levels of service that may jeopardise us performing for the balance of this cool storage and shipping season.”
Tony says they won't have any idea of what the crop size is going to be until pollination has finished.
They are, however, keeping daily progress of orchardists who are cutting out vines.
'At this stage, it's not a huge proportion, but it is a concern.
'And our concern is how much will be pulled out between now and next harvest or, because of the infection of Psa, may not be able to be harvested next season.”
More than 50 per cent of EastPack's orchards are within the Te Puke region, the area most heavily infected with Psa.

'EastPack is a little bit fortunate in that it's not solely concentrated in Te Puke, just under 50 per cent of our business is outside the Te Puke area.

'We have got major volume in the Whakatane and Opotiki areas as well in the Hawke's Bay and to lesser extent, in the Waikato.”

Tony says both Gold and Green growers can probably expect a better price due to a reduction in crop.

'In a decreasing volume environment, Gold trays will probably be in a position where they can expect more dollars per tray, because of the shortage.
'Green is the big unknown and that's why we're not prepared to make any commitments to staffing levels going forward until we understand what our Green and Gold numbers are, which won't be until mid-December, early January.

'Because of how Zespri operates, in what we call a market mix. They will ensure that any higher paying markets are maximised and if there is any shortfall it comes off the lower paying markets – so just because of that you'd expect there to be small increase in revenue for Green growers.”

Meanwhile EastPack is working closely with Zespri and other providers to 'make savings and enhancements in the supply chain to try and increase, Green growers in particular, OGRs”, says Tony.

EastPack has already reduced packing costs by 20 cents.

'Ourselves, and I suggest most in the post-harvest industry, will be doing what they can to pass on any benefits to growers in these very difficult times.”