NEW ZEALAND - The summer fruit season is in full swing, and Zespri™ has the kiwifruit supplies to fill shelves. The supplier reported record sales for the beginning of the 2024 season, and is now touting increased volume.

“There has been significant effort from the industry to deliver a fantastic crop of high-quality fruit which allowed us to capitalize on early season sales opportunities,” Jason Te Brake, Chief Executive Officer, stated. “We’re now in a period that is traditionally more challenging on the back of the arrival of summer fruit, which is something we see every year. This is a period where we typically experience strong competition from the likes of peaches, berries, melons, and grapes, which are more available in volume and at lower prices than expected.”

Around 75 percent of this season’s largest ever crop of more than 190 million trays of kiwifruit from New Zealand have now been shipped to Zespri’s customers around the world, a press release stated. Zespri’s teams are focused on driving sales and preserving value for growers through the competitive summer fruit season.

“While strong competition has seen sales rates in most of our major markets ease back from the record highs we’ve seen in the early parts of the season, feedback from our customers has been clear that they have huge confidence in the quality of our fruit this season, and they want more of it,” Te Brake continued.

As well as domestic summer fruit, there is more competition in the kiwifruit category, including an increase in volume of Chilean green kiwifruit in the United States market. Zespri’s teams have been well prepared with season planning focused on getting the season off to a strong start before hitting the summer fruit period.

“With summer fruit experiencing tough growing conditions this season, it’s likely to be off shelves earlier with competition expected to subside in the next month and we’re already seeing signs of this starting to ease in some of our key markets,” Te Brake added. “This season’s fruit quality has us well placed to close out the season strongly in the remaining months as this summer fruit exits the market, capitalizing on clearer space in market to support returns to our growers. Zespri and our partners remain focused on delivering a record crop, with our teams in market executing some outstanding campaigns to drive sales rates and deliver the season well.”

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