Michael Franks

Yeah, so Seeker's an integrated produce company that's listed.

We are the only one that's listed with kiwifruit as our foundation variety.

We are a large grower of kiwifruit in New Zealand, mainly through leased and managed orchards.

And we've got a network of highly automated pack houses throughout the major growing regions, 11 pack houses in total.

So in our orcharding business, which produces around 40 to 45% of the fruit that we handle, an orchard is planted, the structures are developed, which means the frames that the kiwifruit grows on and any protection or irrigation put in place, those plants are trained through to production.

It might take three to five years depending upon the variety.

and then once the orchard is yielding, it moves through to the post-harvest sector.

So the fruit's on the vine, it matures, and the post-harvest effectively arranges for the clearance of that fruit to make sure that it's safe, make sure it's got no residues, make sure it's mature and ready to go, arranges the harvest of that fruit either by the grower themselves or through a service that we might provide.

We schedule the reception of that fruit to one of our pack houses,

It is allowed to rest to get the shocker being picked out of its system.

And then we will put it across one of our automated packing facilities, grade it into class one, class two, or class three, so for the relative markets.

And we'll put that fruit to sleep in a cool store to be loaded out at a time that we are ready.

How long does that fruit sit in the cool store?

Well, it depends on the part of the season that we're in.

Early in the season, that fruit might only sit in the cool store for a number of weeks.

We start harvesting fruit of all types in New Zealand around mid-February with kiwi berry.

We will finish harvesting in a normal season in the first week of June.

The last of the fruit will load out from our stores sometime in late November.

So we've got to be very good in segregating the product as a perishable to maximise the amount of freight that we deliver to the premium markets in top condition so that the marketer can make the most money out of it.

So Hukapak is one of our 11 pack houses.