John Lewitt
Head of Operations & Logistics

Operations update

We are well underway with our 2025 packing season.

• Only one orchard of Red19 remains.
• Half a million trays of SunGold Organic and,
• well over two million trays of SunGold Conventional have now been packed.

Staffing levels have been stable, and we expect this trend to continue through the remainder of the season. We now have all five of our day shifts and nightshifts operating, including our two relief shifts. This means we are now able to pack fruit seven days a week on all four packing lines for the remainder of the season, with our shifts moving to a four day-on, one day-off roster.

Packhouse 2’s new eight-line sizer is running well, and we hope to pack 30% more fruit through this packing line this season.

Fruit quality has been good overall; however, we are finding a number of short stalks still attached to the fruit in the Bin Tip. There is a risk that these short stalks will puncture surrounding fruit, which can develop into rot in the coolstore and will require costly repacking prior to loading out. Explosive soft fruit levels have been low so far this season, which is quite normal during KiwiStart; we hope this trend will continue into Main Pack.

Shipping of our fruit is progressing well. Currently, we have shipped over a million trays of fruit and have a good volume of orders in front of us.

Mike Perrett
Head of Kiwifruit Grower Services

Ageism

When we meet a person for the first time, one of the first things we notice is their age. This may then lead to assumptions about their attitude, behaviour, thought processes, and/or ability in the workplace – society has also tended to group generations with negative stereotypes, which doesn’t help us to break away from them.

Not to delve into the negative connotations of each generation, some of the more interesting defining characteristics I’ve heard are:

• Silent Generation – Born between 1925 and 1945. Children of the Great Depression and World War II. Traditionalists, cautious conformists who sought stability, worked hard and thrived by not rocking the boat in an era of booming post-war economic prosperity.
• Baby Boomers – Born between 1946 and 1964. Value individual choice, see community involvement as necessary and essential, seek health and wellness in new ways, work hard to earn prosperity, seek ownership of businesses and homes.
• Gen X – Born between 1965 and 1980. Highly independent, value work-life balance, adapt easily to new technology, versatile, resilient, open to constructive feedback, like to learn new skills.
• Millennials – Born between 1981 and 1996. Influential in the workplace, confident with technology, cautious about personal data, optimistic about the environment, avid savers, love to travel, competitive.
• Gen Z – Born between 1997 and 2010. Better behaved than previous generations, the first truly digital generation, more likely to graduate, consume less alcohol than previous generations, higher percentage of single-parent families.
• Gen Alpha – Born 2011 to today. Growing up in a digital world, rely on technology to help them discover the world, not as dependent on physical contact with their peers as previous generations.

It is well recognised that a business with a diverse range of people within its employee base will have better outcomes both culturally and economically, and I believe that’s true for the kiwifruit industry also. We all come with perspectives, ideas and experiences that can positively change the industry – let’s see everyone for their value and contribution rather than the stereotypes about our generational compartments.

I’m privileged to work with a range of ages in the Trevelyan’s Kiwifruit Grower Services and Trevelyan’s Managed Orchards teams, who collectively bring about great ideas from their varying perspectives and experiences.

At 65, I’ve been more frequently asked, “When will you retire?” and I smile. I have no plans to just stop and retire! Why? – Why does a 70+ year-old still play an active part in their orchard? – because it keeps them active, gives them a purpose and because they still have a lot to give!

If you were interested, the Trevelyan’s kiwifruit grower base has the following generational split based on ownership:

• Silent Generation – 5%
• Baby Boomers – 40%
• Gen X – 31%
• Millennials – 15%
• Gen Z – 9%
• Gen Alpha – 0%

I’m glad we have a broad representation; a healthy community requires people of all ages to remain vibrant and function effectively. Our industry must attract and retain people of all ages to continue to flourish and grow.

Our diverse age range of Trevelyan’s kiwifruit growers

Daniel Birnie
Head of Avocado

What’s next?

I am writing this article on a Sunday afternoon. It is the end of March, 26 degrees outside, and I am reflecting on a solid day of fishing yesterday (thanks, David Wills for taking us to find some bluenose).

I wondered what to write about and was considering what is coming up for the avocado department. As we finish the end of the old season fruit, attention shifts to crop estimates for the coming season. 

This topic has been written about many times, and I thought I would take a different tack and look at some of the variables involved.

Last season, we actually did pretty well, we were within 5% of our preseason bin estimate, 7% of our export trays estimate, and pretty much bang on with our local estimate. 

When looking at some of the highs and lows of what individual growers have achieved, we had a high of 69% Class 1 packout, and a low of 20%.

Regarding yield, one grower picked 81 bins off their 0.6-hectare orchard (they haven’t even finished picking yet!!), which equates to 44 tonnes per hectare; the lowest yield has been 0.1 tonne per hectare.

So, when walking an orchard and discussing crop estimates with growers, we now have those kinds of parameters to work with. 

Then there is the discussion of whether they will supply export or local, if export, which exporter will they use, and whether they will keep any fruit for the late local market. Putting all these decisions into the mix and coming up with tray numbers for our marketers can be a challenge, one however, I thoroughly enjoy.

So yes, Anne and I will be out on orchards, and we will be calling into growers to see what they are thinking they have for this coming season.

Looking forward to it!

Righto then – I will go back to thinking about that next fishing trip 😊

Bex Astwood
Organic Category Manager

Organics update

Welcome to the first quarter newsletter.

It’s been an early start to the season, having had our first GAOB fruit picked on the 7th of March and the Gold Organic Kiwistart Cap closing on the 25th of March. Comparing this to last year, our first pick was on March 13th, with the cap closing on the 28th of March (although it reopened for further allocation).

Trevelyan’s contributed  554,302 trays toward the 1,597,205 Class 1 Gold Organic trays packed under FPP, equating to 34.7% of the industry submit. Our average trays per HA for GAOB currently sits at 11,449, with an average size of 27. Onto HWOB KiwiStart next!

At Zespri’s Organic Town Hall on the 5th of March, Zespri’s Global Growth Lead for Organics, Tracey Armstrong, gave growers a recap of the 2024 season and spoke on their focuses for the 2025 selling season, including market access and marketing and selling activities. This was followed by a discussion on Precision Breeding led by the Kiwifruit Breeding Centre’s Chief Commercial Officer, Bart Challis.

If you were unable to attend the town hall, you can catch up by watching the recordings here.

Precision Breeding was topical, given the potential implementation of the Gene Technology Bill and its implications on the kiwifruit industry. This Bill was introduced on the 10th of December 2024 and, following its first reading, had written submissions close on the 17th of February. The Certified Organic Kiwifruit Association (COKA) supported the Organics Aotearoa NZ (OANZ) submission, which can be found here.

If you are interested in learning more about the Bill, there are some great resources at https://www.oanz.org/. This is important legislation for New Zealand, and it is imperative that you are informed of the potential risks and benefits so we may ensure that any legislation is fit for purpose and not rushed through.

Good luck for the rest of the season – may this great picking weather continue!

Debbie Robinson
Head of Supply

Industry tours

Each year, Zespri asks us to host a variety of tour groups. The majority are representatives from companies that either buy kiwifruit directly or distribute our fruit in markets around the world. As well as the market tour groups, we also have numerous other interested groups, including government representatives. This can be mutually beneficial as it gives us an opportunity to discuss issues that significantly influence the Kiwifruit sector, such as biosecurity, employment and sustainability. All decisions made by the government of the day can influence the Kiwifruit sector.

The tours are a part of my role that I enjoy as it’s an opportunity to meet some really interesting people from around the world and New Zealand, sharing information about the Industry and Trevelyan’s.

Recently we hosted a group of 10 International Nuffield scholars. The scholars were from around the world and were all tied into different areas of agriculture. Their tour was to give them an understanding of agriculture globally and they came to Trevelyan’s because they wanted to understand how the kiwifruit industry works. They were interested in the scale of the operation, the technology we use and automation we have implemented and the story around sustainability. Additionally. they were also very interested in the history of Trevelyan’s and how it developed into the size and scale it is now.

I asked each group member to take a moment to explain a little about themselves and the topics they had chosen for their individual studies. I found it of interest that many of them had a sustainability theme.

International Nuffield Scholars Tour

Last week, we hosted a group of 20 from Japan. They were largely kiwifruit buyers or distributors who had come to see firsthand how we grow and ship kiwifruit grown in New Zealand.

Japan Trade Tour

Explaining the Trevelyan core values of Respect our People, Work Smart and Tread Lightly is always interesting to our guests. Our visitors were fully engaged when we gave examples of how we measure if we are meeting our core values and how ‘’living our values’’ is a team effort involving all on-site.

I always recommend they visit the Trevelyan’s website after the tours to read our annual GRI sustainability reports as they detail many of the initiatives that we can only touch on while walking around the site together.

Most of our guests are impressed by the sheer scale of the site, the harvest and packing operations and they often comment on the tidiness of the site and the friendliness of the staff. Hopefully, they leave with a deeper understanding of the industry and an appreciation of the effort that goes into supplying our markets with great quality New Zealand kiwifruit.

Gordon Skipage
Head of Technical

The impact of unhealthy vines

As we enter into the fourth week of kiwifruit packing, I reflect on the impact that unhealthy vines have on the quality of the kiwifruit. If you’ve been reading Pranoy’s Kiwifruit TechTips over the past year or so, you might have noticed that much of the research being conducted is around “what’s causing the quality problem”?

Put simply, recent research by Plant and Food and Zespri strongly suggests that unhealthy and/or stressed vines cause a long list of physiological problems for the vine, which ultimately results in poor quality or damaged fruit. My observations so far this season indicate:

• Vines that are stressed are more likely to produce fruit with brittle stalks that don’t break off cleanly when picked, resulting in “short stalks”.
  • When picked, the short stalks cause punctures in other fruit, which form a rot once packed.

• Fruit with the lowest maturity at harvest often have short stalks – I surmise that the vine is not yet ready to “let go” of the immature fruit, meaning the fruit doesn’t detach easily from the stalk when picked (resulting in a short stalk).
• Stressed vines are more susceptible to the array of otherwise harmless fungal/bacterial organisms that live in the orchard.
  • Such infections can cause the vine to abort fruit, which ultimately results in explosive fruit.

• Typically, orchards with excessive croploads are more stressed, therefore have more quality issues at harvest (i.e. more short stalks/explosives).
  • Growers often try to “boost” the health of these overcropping vines by applying foliar fertilisers (which may mask the unseen quality issue with the fruit).

I often use the analogy of human health – if we constantly overexert ourselves and don’t get the right nutrition and rest, we become more susceptible to illness/reduced performance. The same philosophy should be applied to our vines.

The long-term prospect of overstressed vines is not a good one. Reducing stressors on the orchard is key to plant health and longevity – reducing the number of girdles, cutting back on yields and giving the vines a rest (and foliar nutrition boost AFTER harvest) will pay long-term dividends.

Sarah Lei
Head of Sustainability

It’s the little things that count

Over the last couple of months, we have completed the second annual assessment of our performance against our Sustainability Performance Targets (SPTs), established as part of our Sustainability-linked Loan. We are pleased to report that we have achieved all three of our targets for 2024, which means we will get a discount against the interest we pay on our loans.  Our achievements against each of the three SPTs are given below, with the target values being measured against our 2021 Baseline Year.

• SPT1 – Reduced waste to landfill by 48.5% compared with a target reduction of 30%.
• SPT2 – Reduced intensity-based Scope 1 and 2 Emissions by 20.6% per kilo tonne of fruit receipted compared with a target reduction of 7.5%.
• SPT3 – Reduced absolute Scope 1 and 2 Emissions by 16.5% compared with a target reduction of 15.2%.

Once all the dust has settled and we are sitting at our desks working out the numbers, it is easy to forget the effort and commitment across the organisation that goes into achieving these results. As we move into another season, we challenge ourselves to build on the efforts of the previous year.

Landfill Waste

Every year, we generate hundreds of tonnes of waste at Trevelyan’s, made up of a multitude of different waste streams – from wood to cardboard, label backing and plastic strapping. Fortunately (and often through mindful procurement), many of these waste streams can be recycled or composted, and we aim to facilitate these processes as readily as possible.

Every time one of the thousands of people who work at our site puts something in a bin, they make a decision to separate the waste or send it to landfill. It’s our job as a business to make sure that the right decision is the easiest decision by having the correct bin where they need it.

Once the waste is in the right bin, there are still plenty of steps required to consolidate, compact, transfer and compost or recycle it, but, while all this effort can feel challenging at times, it should add up to a great result when we check the final numbers.

Scope 1 and 2 Carbon Emissions

Our Scope 1 emissions come from the fuel we use in our operations and any refrigerant leaks that occur.

Each time anyone uses a company vehicle or a forklift, they are making a decision that will impact our emissions. It’s taken a fair bit of effort over the last few years to measure our fuel use more accurately so we can make better decisions about how it can be reduced, but it’s our job as a business to provide lower-emission options and to support opportunities to reduce fuel consumption.

Reducing the impact of refrigerant leaks is a huge economic and environmental opportunity for our industry. From improved leak detection to changing refrigerant types, this is an area where cross-industry collaboration is proving beneficial in reducing our emissions impacts.

Our Scope 2 emissions come from electricity. In recent years, we have seen large increases in electricity costs and emissions as New Zealand uses more non-renewable fuels in its electricity supply. Taking small steps to improve our electricity efficiency, from new lights to better coolstore defrost systems and load shedding, has helped to limit our electricity use as our throughput has increased.

As we continue to set more demanding targets for the future, we recognize how challenging these will be to achieve. Our past sustainability efforts have taught us that little things can make a big difference.

“If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.” Bob Parsons

Colin Olesen
TGL Chair

A reduction in physical damage please

Our kiwifruit industry presently enjoys a strong positive vibe on many fronts. On orchard, the season has provided good weather for fruit development, and thus far, the weather for harvest has been very cooperative. Off orchard, most industry decisions have been finalised for the current crop and their implementation is now in action mode. Demand continues to grow year on year, so we look forward to seeing our healthy fruit being in good demand in all our markets.

Your Directors’ recent meeting examined the context of operations within our TPCL packhouse, both from a logistical viewpoint as well as economic. The impact of physically damaged fruit coming into the packhouse was of particular note. This is a cost that can be minimised if the quality of harvesting on the orchard is closely monitored. The Harvest Audit criteria and scope have been further amended to ‘bring home’ the message that this cost to the Grower can be actioned for the better.

Following his orchard sale settlement at the end of March, Geoff Wyllie-Miln has resigned as a Director of TGL per our constitution. Geoff’s three-year term was due to end at this year’s AGM, and because that is only a few months away, your Directors have decided not to have an election to fill the vacancy; instead, the vacancy will be filled with the next round of usual elections. Thank you, Geoff, for your valued contribution to our TGL Director discussions and decisions.

The Trevelyan (TPCL) Packing Agreement has been sent to all Trevelyan Growers, with the Trevelyan (TGL) Supply Agreement to be finalised shortly, and hopefully in your hands for signing by the time you read this page. Please attend to the signing of both agreements promptly as this will assist the Trevelyan’s Kiwifruit Grower Services team in their work.

All the best for a good harvest.

Ashby Whitehead
TAGL Chair

We turn to the 2025/26 season

With the 2024/25 export season finished, a big thank you must go to Daniel and his team for their efforts. It is no easy feat meeting the flow plan whilst juggling grower expectations, logistics and the weather.

Having two exporters pack out of Trevelyan’s Pack & Cool has added another dimension of logistics for the packhouse, but I understand this has gone very well. Growers will be anxious to get their export payments finalised and compare them with previous years to see how our exporters performed.

Areas of opportunity are constantly changing, and more fruit will be destined for markets other than Australia this year. This, in turn, will see the export season kick off earlier, with the flow plan requiring 90% of our fruit to be picked by Christmas.

Growers will need to be all-market compliant early this season to ensure they are harvested in a timely manner. This is essential to a smooth harvest and fulfilling export flow plans. Growers who are exporting with AVOCO must also update to the new IFA V6 Global GAP food safety programme.

Through BayFarms, our focus is now on supplying the local market and securing good returns. From a TAGL perspective, the communication and input from Zara and the BayFarms team have been a breath of fresh air. Zara has an excellent understanding of the local market and is a great asset to all BayFarms suppliers. Please support Zara and her team in harvesting the plan; this will ensure value is maintained.

TAGL will be reviewing the pool structure that was implemented this season for local market payments.

Lastly, as you may have seen in the media, the Olivado oil company has been put into liquidation. Ian Coventry from Trevelyan’s is representing Trevelyan’s/BayFarms, and we will keep growers informed of any outcomes.

If you have any thoughts or concerns from a TAGL perspective, please contact me or one of our directors.

Packhouse 2 sizer upgrade

Congratulations to Mike and our Trevelyan’s Engineering Team, along with our partners at KennTec, Jenkins, SMC Engineering, Russet, Dowman Engineering and EMAC, on their achievement of getting Packhouse 2’s new sizer up and running for the 2025 kiwifruit season.

With 40 packing drops and eight operating lanes, we’ve increased the packing capacity of Line 2 by 33%.

The new sizer can hold up to 10 lanes (you’ll be able to see the space for the two other lanes in the photo), providing even more packing capacity for use in the future.

Packhouse 2 sizer