Bay of Plenty's EastPack reports improved grower rebate

Results: Grower returns up for 2016, but Green yields down this year, say EastPack chief executive Hamish Simson (left) and chairman John Loughlin. Photo / Supplied

Bay of Plenty kiwifruit post-harvest operator EastPack says its growers will share in more than $9.8 million worth of transactor rebates for the 2016 season.

EastPack chairman John Loughlin said the company's accounts were being finalised for release next month.

Growers would receive a bonus rebate of seven cents per tray, bringing the total rebate to 27 cents per tray. The final dividend for investor shareholders of seven cents gross per share brought the total dividend for the year to 12 cents, up 20 per cent from the previous year, he said.

"At this stage, we are seeing a very strong result and we have sufficient confidence to make this announcement," said Mr Loughlin.

"We achieved excellent production efficiencies with good volumes of fruit and strong asset utilisation throughout the year. The benefits of our capital development programme, which has progressed over the last three years to improve packing and coolstore efficiencies, are starting to provide significant return on investment."

The investment would give EastPack the opportunity to further improve performance in future years, he said.

EastPack chief executive Hamish Simson said that in addition to packing record volumes for EastPack growers, the company had also packed trays for other post-harvest facilities, whose growers required near-infrared grading technology to recover fruit that would have otherwise failed to meet Zespri Dry Matter requirements.

"One of the most pleasing things about the 2016 season is that despite record volumes, in particular Hayward productivity, EastPack Growers generally had the ability to pick and pack their fruit at the best time because we understand how important that is to them," said Mr Simson.

"We were also delighted to be in a position to help other growers who pack with other facilities."

Along with other Bay of Plenty post-harvest companies, most of which have also added significantly to their infrastructure and packing capabilities, EastPack is looking at reduced volumes of green fruit for the harvest beginning next month.

Zespri confirmed this week that - as heralded late last year - green productivity was likely to be down to about 70 million trays from about 90 million trays in 2016.

Mr Simson said EastPack's crop estimates for the 2017 season indicated green orchard productivity would be more closely aligned to the 2014 growing season after two years of record high yields.

However, gold volumes were expected to increase slightly on 2016, with more orchards coming into full production.

EastPack
-Merged in 2013 with Satara to become the largest post-harvest operator in the kiwifruit industry.