Prime Minister has made his way across the Bay of Plenty today.
This morning he visited the Red Stag Mill before stopping in at Western Heights Primary School and Te Puke High School before opening the East Pack Kiwifruit Packhouse Plant in Te Puke.
EastPack was celebrating the official opening of New Zealand's largest automated kiwifruit grading and sorting line at its Washer Road site in Te Puke.
The new grader packs 100,000 trays per shift and provided EastPack with the capacity to pack in excess of 40 million trays of fruit across the business and would provide a good financial return to its shareholders.
In the mid to late 1990s, the Washer Road site was regarded as one of the most sophisticated packing sites in the kiwifruit industry.
During the period of the PSA outbreak, the low industry volumes meant that the site was effectively mothballed and used just for storage.
Now, just 3 years later, and after significant investment, the Washer Road site is now one of the most technologically advanced facilities in the industry and along with EastPack's Quarry road site has one of the largest packing capacities in the Industry.
The cost of the investment at the Washer Road site was nearing $25 million.