Seeka offers staff redundancies

Te Puke-based Seeka Kiwifruit Industries is expecting to handle a smaller crop next season because of the Psa bacterial disease, and is looking to cut jobs.

Seeka, the country's biggest kiwifruit post-harvest operator and listed on the New Zealand sharemarket, has made a voluntary redundancy offer to staff in all its operating divisions.

"We have to be pro-active and take steps to reset our cost structure," said Seeka chief executive, Michael Franks.

"Our throughput [of kiwifruit] will be hit and our earnings will be affected.

"It's a fact of life in the kiwifruit industry at present. We have this dreadful disease and it's wiping out orchards."

Five of Seeka's long-term leased orchards in the Te Puke region have been hit by the serious Psa-V strain.

Mr Franks said Seeka had not yet decided how many jobs would be lost. "People have worked hard this year. We want to maintain the culture and we are going through a process.

"Once we receive the [redundancy] applications, we will make decisions on whether we accept them."

Seeka, which packs a fifth of the national kiwifruit crop, employs 250 fulltime staff in its head office and 16 packhouse and storage facilities around the country.

During the peak of the harvesting season it hires more than 3000 seasonal staff.

The staff reductions will be made over the next two to three months so Seeka can absorb the costs in its present financial year, ending December 31.

This season Seeka handled 25 million trays of kiwifruit, including 6.4 million trays of gold fruit. It expects the gold volume will be significantly reduced next year - even down by a half.

The latest Kiwifruit Vine Health statistics show that 66 per cent of the gold crop and 18 per cent of green in the Te Puke priority zone has been affected by Psa-V.

"How much of the crop will be removed or carried through to harvest, we don't know at this stage," Mr Franks said.

"There's no doubt we will be handling less gold and we have to take action now to prepare well ahead of the new season."

This week Psa-V was detected in another 33 orchards, taking the total to 295, including 289 at Te Puke. The Tauranga priority zone (Welcome Bay and Matapihi) has five affected orchards and Waihi one.

The area of gold with confirmed Psa-V has tripled over the past six weeks.

Seeka said Psa-V had now been detected on 261ha of gold orchards - out of 517ha - that supplied the company.

The disease had also affected 292ha of green orchards out of 2130ha that supplied Seeka.