The first of this season's kiwifruit export crop was loaded at the Port of Tauranga yesterday, bound for Zespri's biggest market, Japan.
Pallets and containers of freshly-picked kiwifruit were loaded on to the Lapponian Reefer, which was due to sail for Kawasaki this morning.
The season's first shipment symbolised the return of optimism to an industry barely three-and-a-half years after the vine-killing disease Psa began to spread gloom through Te Puke orchards.
A frost in Chile last year that wiped out almost half that country's kiwifruit crop was expected to boost export prices for New Zealand's crop.
Zespri chairman Peter McBride said exports would continue until late October or early November, with the majority of the crop shipped in reefer ships, which he compared to floating coolstores.