Global kiwifruit marketer Zespri International is likely to cut staff numbers once the impact of the Psa bacterial disease on next year's crop is more clearly known.
At this stage - as Psa spreads through the Bay - Zespri believes the national crop will fall by 20 million trays, on the back of a record crop of 115 million trays this season. That would result in a revenue drop of more than $100 million.
Zespri chairman John Loughlin told the Bay of Plenty Times that "we are doing some preliminary work on redundancies". He said the board had instructed its chief executive Lain Jager to look at cost adjustments to the organisation. Mr Loughlin said the picture was not clear yet and it should unfold in the next two to three months when the present selling season is finished and "we have a sighting on what the new crop looks like".
"If the revenue is going to be down, then we have to adjust costs accordingly. But we haven't worked out all the answers yet about how you might shrink the organisation," he said.
Asked how the staff were reacting, Mr Loughlin said "they are aware the industry has changed and you have to adjust. That's understood, but it's never easy and pleasant when the world changes."
Te Puke-based Seeka Kiwifruit Industries, the country's largest post-harvest operator, has made a voluntary redundancy offer to its staff, after saying it will be handling less kiwifruit next year. Mount Maunganui-based Zespri has 270 staff with 150 New Zealand-based and it recently hired six new people overseas to grow kiwifruit sales in the South East Asian and Indian markets.
