Quality key to cherry crop challenges

Summerfruit Exporters Committee chair and Board director Craig Hall, has updated exporters regarding the challenges ahead. He advises that Central Otago has a ‘full’ cherry crop and that the Summerfruit NZ Board discussed the implications of the large cherry volume on labour and freight at their meeting last week.

It was agreed that there will be pressure on labour, especially in the early to mid-part of January. There are still a lot of unknowns on how this season will play out with labour and freight, and a lot depends on harvest conditions, timing, and volume. Each exporter and grower(s) will have their own strategy on how to deal with these issues.

Craig hopes that, given the potential volume and cost of getting fruit to market, everyone in the industry takes on the extra responsibility to focus on quality going into the box, and the quality needs to reflect the time it will take to go through the distribution chain.