NEW ZEALAND - After announcing promising opportunities in the kiwifruit space for 2024, Zespri™ is back with even more insights into this burgeoning sector. The kiwi maven has released its final forecast for the 2023–24 season, revealing record per-tray returns for green, organic green, SunGold™, and RubyRed kiwifruit.

“The lift we’ve seen in all of our per-tray returns is a real credit to the hard work that’s taken place across the industry and throughout our global supply chain to improve quality,” shared Chief Executive Officer Dan Mathieson, noting that the efforts undertaken by the industry to lift fruit quality and reduce costs had been a key factor in the improved returns, along with strong consumer demand for Zespri kiwifruit. “It’s really helped our markets to maintain strong run rates and maximize value while closing out the season, with all categories other than Organic SunGold Kiwifruit expected to deliver record per-tray returns.”

As a press release detailed, forecasted SunGold Kiwifruit returns are at a record level of $12.62 per tray, well above last season’s final OGR of $9.97, while Organic SunGold Kiwifruit is at $14.21. For Zespri RubyRed Kiwifruit, the forecast average per tray return is at a record $26.54, up from last season’s final OGR of $22.27.

“While we’re always looking to increase the value we’re returning across all of our varieties, it’s particularly pleasing to see a real lift in our Green returns. That’s been driven by the increased value our teams have secured from lower volumes, especially in Europe, as well as strong market performance in Japan and North America,” Mathieson added. “We’ve also seen strong demand for SunGold kiwifruit, and RubyRed kiwifruit has continued to perform strongly, which we expect to see continue as RubyRed becomes the first of this year’s crop to hit stores soon.”

Quality fruit remains the focus as around 193 million trays of kiwifruit are expected to be shipped in 2024–25.

“We know that when we get good fruit to market it sells and sells well, so continuing to focus on providing our customers and consumers with great kiwifruit throughout the season will again be our focus,” continued Mathieson. “As well as the focus on per-tray returns, we’re also looking forward to seeing improved per-hectare returns for growers in the coming season, with our February crop estimate showing a strong improvement in expected yields.”

For more details on the forecast, click here. And keep reading ANUK for more category updates.