Zespri’s last charter vessel of the 2024 kiwifruit season has departed the Port of Tauranga bound for Japan.

Around 4,610 tonnes of Zespri Green Kiwifruit are onboard the Lady Rosehip, which is expected to reach Tokyo at the start of November, before sailing onto Kobe.

Zespri has used 62 charter vessels to ship this season’s kiwifruit from New Zealand, including three to Northern Europe, 13 to the Mediterranean, three to North America’s West Coast and 43 to Asia. That’s up from 51 charter vessels last season.

The season’s final container shipments carrying the remaining 4,400 tonnes of the crop are also expected to conclude in the coming weeks.

Zespri CEO Jason Te Brake said there has been significant effort from the industry this season to deliver a record crop of more than 190 million trays (684,000 tonnes) to more than 50 markets around the world.

“Fruit quality this season has been some of the best we have seen in the past five years and we’ve been hearing great feedback from our customers in market, which is positive when we have a lot more fruit to sell and to meet the strong demand we’re seeing across our markets.

“The New Zealand sales season is expected to wrap up for SunGold in Europe at the end of this week, while Green will run through to the end of November, and the season will finish up in late November/early December in Asia.

“Our sales and marketing teams are focused on maintaining strong sales rates to ensure we close the season well and deliver the best possible result to our growers. Europe’s been performing really strongly with France a particular standout, along with strong sales in Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. In the US we continue to be the number one kiwifruit brand driven by strong SunGold performance.

“In Asia, it’s been a huge season in Greater China with volume up 40 per cent on last year and we continue to buck the trend in fresh produce with both value and volume up year-on-year. In difficult market conditions, sales have also been tracking well in Japan and Korea.”

Te Brake said as we move towards completing the New Zealand season with the last charter on its way, planning for 2025 is ramping up with preparation again involving representatives from Zespri, post-harvest and NZKGI.

“While it’s still early at this stage, we’re planning for a more moderate increase in crop volume from New Zealand next year.

“As we head towards the final stretch of the New Zealand season, we’re looking forward to finishing strongly before we transition to our counter-seasonal Zespri Global Supply (ZGS) programme, which enables us to offer 12-month supply to our key customers and consumers, holding our shelf space and value until the New Zealand season starts again in 2025.”

In response to increasing demand and intensifying competition, Zespri has been discussing the expansion of ZGS with New Zealand producers and will confirm shortly if it will be holding a producer vote to plant more hectares of Zespri SunGold Kiwifruit in the northern hemisphere.