Seeka ready to resume full production after fire

Seeka CEO Michael Franks

Seeka Kiwifruit Industries will be back at full operational capacity this week after the major fire which destroyed part of its Oakside post-harvest site at Te Puke two months ago, says chief executive Michael Franks.

He said the blaze came just before the onset of the kiwifruit harvesting season, so the immediate focus had been on getting back to running at full capacity.

"It was a case of making sensible operational alterations to enable people to get on with their work," he said.

Mr Franks praised insurance broker Aon, lead insurer NZI and loss adjustors Crawford for collaborating with the engineers to come up with the best solution.

Oakside is Seeka's biggest post-harvest site and employs more than 600 people during the harvest.

The fire razed a large shed used for quality checking and repacking fruit prior to dispatch, but the main pack-house, curing canopy, forecourt and rear coolstores, which were recently upgraded, were undamaged and no fruit was damaged.

"It hasn't had any impact on processing," said Mr Franks. The major operational compromise had been that during the past two months, truck drivers have had to load and unload from the same portal, but that would be fixed within the next week.

Seeka, New Zealand's biggest kiwifruit grower and a leading post-harvest operator, had expected to process about 24 million trays of kiwifruit this season compared with 20 million in 2014, Mr Franks said.

But based on current projections, the volumes could be higher once the final tallies came in.

"The season has been disrupted by weather, so it will end later and the crop has grown on nicely," he said. The harvest was expected to end in early June.

Mr Franks said Seeka expected to finish processing its Gold (G3) for growers within the next week.