YOUR INDUSTRY
Nelson harvest after hail When Jamin Brown from Mad Melon heard about the hail-damaged apples around Tasman after the Boxing Day storm, he decided to pitch in and help some of the growers by juicing as many as he could. By Anne Hardie The small start-up business that kicked off the ground last year with watermelon juice can process about 80,000 litres of juice a month, so he is concentrating on some of the region’s smaller growers and providing them with some return for their fruit. “It’s never going to be enough when you compare the losses, but at least it will put food on their table. That’s what we try and achieve as a nation when disasters happen, right? We pull together and work through it.” The hail prompted him to think about markets the business could align itself with, should it take on additional work. Apple juice returns are low and markets saturated, which prompted him to look for a point of difference that justified juicing the damaged apples. He is keeping those details under wraps. The project targets a fraction of the damaged crop, but it has created possibilities for future juicing and growth. “The new markets we are positioning ourselves in have required substantial investment from us to handle the hail demand. It is in my best interest to continue to grow these markets year after year, considering hail will always be a threat to the growers.” Meanwhile, bins of hail-damaged apples are heading to Hawke’s Bay where they will be juiced at Cedenco. Motueka Fruitgrowers’ Association chairman Richard Clarkson says Cedenco still had bins in Nelson after closing the facility last year and those would be filled with damaged apples to head north at harvest. It’s been a tough season for growers, but he says the nature of the game means they are pretty resilient and tend to connect more with each other after a big event such as the hailstorm. He says some businesses will fold, but it’s too early for all growers to judge the outcome from the hail. That won’t happen until the crop has been harvested and final payments are received at the end of the year.
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The ORCHARDIST : MARCH 2021
The local market has provided more options for Andrew Lowe this year
Hail netting saved a lot of apples, and on Birdhurst Orchards where he is pipfruit manager, about 50% of the fruit will still meet export standard because of a range of hail netting systems. That’s despite all bar two of its 24 blocks being hit by hail to varying degrees. Class 2 apples for export will play a bigger role in the region this year, and he says every packhouse will be slightly different in what their class 2 programme looks like and how that affects growers’ returns. Once the crop is harvested, Richard says the next challenge will be sorting out sufficient labour for winter pruning. By then, most of the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme workers in the country will have been here for a long time, and many will want to get home. Yet with Covid-19 restrictions it is still an unknown how sufficient numbers will get back to New Zealand. As the kiwifruit industry heads toward harvest in the region, about half of the gold kiwifruit or 2.2 million trays has been taken out of the picture due to hail. However, grower and New Zealand Apples and Pears Board director Evan Baigent says the fruit that escaped hail damage is shaping up as a “pretty good crop.” His own orchards lost about 90% of the kiwifruit – plus apples – so there’s little fruit to meet that description. Zespri’s pool insurance scheme will help, but the scale of the damage diluted the amount per tray for growers, which meant there “wasn’t much at the end of the day”.
