Coal merchants, growers on hop after temperatures drop

By CHRIS DANIELS and ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE

Coal merchants and kiwifruit growers have been caught on the hop by the sudden arrival of winter temperatures.

The Warehouse, one of the biggest coal retailers, has had a 200 per cent surge in sales as cold weather hit over the past few weeks.

The firm has also sold 25,873 hot-water bottles in a week, compared with 8000 in the same week last year.

Craig Smith, North Island general manager for state-owned coal company Solid Energy, said it had been caught out by the early onset of chilly temperatures.

About 60,000 bags of coal a month were usually sold in the North Island in June and July.

"We build for those months, but we've just been caught a bit. It's come a week or two weeks early.

"There have been people who have run short.

"We have been churning it out as fast as we can do it. It's not a shortage of coal - it's the bagging facility itself."

Duncan McGhie, merchandise manager for The Warehouse, said wood, heaters and blankets were also in big demand.

"It has been so mild that people haven't really thought about it and all of a sudden it's turned cold."

Some stores had run out of coal, he said.

"We do believe it is only a slight glitch.

"With that sort of demand our suppliers didn't have the inventory levels built up."

Mr McGhie said getting enough coal to stores in the colder parts of the North Island, such as Taupo, Tokoroa, Rotorua and Cambridge, had been particularly difficult.

Meanwhile, Bay of Plenty growers are racing to complete the multimillion-dollar kiwifruit harvest by Sunday, when their frost insurance expires.

Kevin Kerr, export operations manager for Zespri International, said 20 per cent of fruit was still on the vines late yesterday and orchardists were focused on getting it picked by the weekend.

This year's harvest was the latest most in the industry could remember, he said.

The two-week delay went back to late flowering and pollination, which was followed by "not very kind" weather last month.

A warm spring and a lot of rain had not helped ripening fruit.

Normally by this time, 90 per cent of kiwifruit had been harvested, Mr Kerr said.

Two quite heavy frosts last weekend and two milder ones since had hastened the picking of vulnerable fruit.

He was confident most of the crop would be harvested by Sunday.

Weatherwise Auckland spokeswoman Carla Salinger said daily minimum temperatures this month were half what they usually were for June.