Nervous wait for export licence ends in delight

By GLENYS CHRISTIAN

Over the gate

As Enzafruit was announcing a $1.20 a carton incentive for pipfruit growers to supply fruit to it this season, Fresh New Zealand's export manager, John Thompson, was nervously waiting for a phone call.

After a successful meeting with the fruit buyer for British supermarket chain Waitrose, he needed a "yes" or "no" from the Export Consents Committee.

The buyer, Richard Hind, had been impressed with the list of growers Mr Thompson reeled off to supply fruit to the company, but it all hinged on securing an export licence.

Waitrose is all about servicing the top end of the market. While it intends to source 80 per cent of the 300,000 cartons of New Zealand apples it will buy this season from Enzafruit, it also wants to build a relationship with individual growers.

It is part of a strategy to provide customer satisfaction through closer links between itself and the growers of food items sold in supermarkets.

This includes placing photos of growers above produce in the various stores.

Mr Hind wanted New Zealand growers, exporting outside of Enzafruit, to join that exclusive gallery but that all hinged on the Export Consents Committee decision.

Mr Thompson said it was an absurdity that Enzafruit had been able to use $25 million of growers' money from past seasons to supplement the income of those supplying it this season.

He believed that Fresh New Zealand's application to export the remaining 20 per cent of Waitrose's New Zealand apple requirements was in the interests of both growers and New Zealand as a whole.

But the committee kept delaying its decision.

Mr Hind, who flew to Chile after two weeks in New Zealand, needed an answer urgently otherwise he would be forced to look to the South Americans to fill his pipfruit requirements.

After all, the customers he services fit into the higher income bracket where eating quality not price is paramount.

However, the executive chairman of Enzafruit, John McCliskie, keeps batting away at the argument that independent exporters would undermine prices and that is why the $1.20 a carton top-up to his suppliers was required.

In contrast, Mr Hind expressed surprise that this country's pipfruit growers knew so little about the British market - a comment on lack of communication which was so often a feature of the old system of doing business.

And the committee's decision.

Word finally came through at the weekend that approval had been given.

An elated Mr Thompson contacted the very understanding Mr Hind to say that the deal could be done, even if approval had come a couple of days late.

He said this was the beginning of a new understanding between growers and customers.

Their need for each other should no longer be hindered by industry structures.

"But it's been a hard, long slog."

* Glenys Christian can be contacted on e-mail at glenys@farmindex.co.nz