The groundwork laid in recent years is paying dividends for Bay of Plenty Kiwifruit management company DMS, who have confirmed a 33 per cent increase in its Grower rebate, and an 8 per cent dividend to shareholders.
DMS is a Bay of Plenty owned and operated orchard management and post-harvest
operator, with two major packhouse sites in Te Puke and Te Puna.
The company will award a 30 cent rebate, an increase of 10 cents over the previous year, and an 8 cent dividend for its shareholder growers.
DMS Operations Manager Derek Masters said the company's increase in profits - an increase which is subsequently distributed to its Grower shareholders - is largely attributed to the significant increase in volume over the past season and the continued excellence in DMS' overall performance.
Mr Masters said DMS have been able to leverage its performance opportunities provided by the significant increase in crop volume over the past three years.
"We have been preparing for this growth phase for a number of years, and continued with these developments and investment despite the impact of Psa. Over that time, we have made a heavy investment in our people and infrastructure to prepare for the growth that we knew would come in the future.
"We have built additional coolstore capacity over the last two years to cater for the increased volumes and ensured that we are utilising our assets effectively.
"We have also continued to focus on having the people, systems and processes in place to ensure that our high performance levels can be maintained, as reported by our ongoing, outstanding results for onshore and offshore fruit loss - well under the industry average."
For the 2015 season DMS achieved an onshore fruit loss of just 1.28 per cent for green kiwifruit, compared to the industry average of 4.10%; DMS' onshore fruit loss for G3 was a minimal 0.05 per cent or just 924 trays, while the industry average was 1.05 per cent.
Mr Masters says DMS' has rigorously applied the concept of 'lean manufacturing' to all aspects of its operation, particularly the princple of continuous improvent which has contributed to these results.
"It is well known that we have a lean managment structure, so that we can focus our efforts on what really matters - helping our Growers produce great fruit, and then harvesting and packing that fruit to earn them the best results. Our Brand promise is to Increase Grower Profit and that is a result we continue to deliver, year after year.
"Our focus is on continuing to grow at a controlled rate over the next few years so that we can maintain our performance at the top of the industry scorecard and continue to deliver a high level of financial and quality performances."
