Northland fruit growers are in a pickle after thousands of dollars worth of fruit - including 900kg of avocados - were filched from packhouses across the region.
Somebody with an inside knowledge of the horticulture industry is thought to be behind the string of burglaries.
Thieves struck an avocado packhouse west of
Whangarei over the weekend, taking nearly 600kg of high grade Haas avocados. Two weeks earlier about 300kg of the fruit were taken during a heist at the same property.
The thefts came on the heels of 1000kg of mandarins being taken from a Kerikeri packhouse.
The bulk heist of roughly 10,000 mandarins was surprising given it followed three previous thefts from the same site, and the firm had just beefed up security in a bid to keep its produce from disappearing.
Previous raids had netted "truckloads" of tomatoes and 29 crates of mandarins.
After the latest raid involving avocados, the businesses owners at NTL Horticulture, Maungatapere, were forced to install an expensive security system at the packhouse.
General manager Duane Wells said a lock had been smashed off the chiller unit and two-and-a-half bins of avocados were taken. A truck had been parked in front of the chiller. But it seemed the thieves had brought their own trays and transferred the fruit into them and pushed past the truck. It's estimated they made off with 2500 fruit grown locally.
In the earlier raid on September 8300kg of low grade avocados were taken in 15 red and yellow coloured trays.
"It's someone who knows the industry and how to move large amounts of fruit," Mr Wells said.
"The hardest part of this is ringing the grower and telling them their fruit is stolen after the hard work they have put in to growing them and harvesting."
He said 300 crates were stolen in June and cost the business $5000.
A security system had been installed at the packhouse as a result.
"We're coming into the busiest part of the season. We are growers ourselves so we know about the hard yards of growing fruit," Mr Wells said.
Bay of Islands' top cop Senior Sergeant Peter Robinson suspected the hot produce was being trucked down to markets in Auckland.
