Kiwifruit confidence fuels big plans
Confidence in the kiwifruit industry’s export growth is fuellingMount Pack& Cool’s plans to charge ahead with newinvestment in innovation and increased packing and storage capacity at its 6.5ha site at the Tauriko Business Estate.
In January, the privatelyowned companywill start work on its fourth stage of development which, when complete, willmakeitNewZealand’s largest individual post-harvest site, with the capacity to handle 24 million trays of Class 1 kiwifruit by 2022.
General manager Brendon Lee saysMountPack& Cool’s rapid growth reflected the industry’s and Zespri’s positive market outlook and was also a sign of growers’ confidence in the company’s ability to deliver strong returns year after year.
“Growers can seewehave an amazing facility and our results speak for themselves. As growers are also increasing production volumes on orchards, they’re looking to partner with us because they can see we’ve future-proofed for growth and greater capacity, which is critical for themat harvest time.”
The state of the art facility has been operating at Tauriko sinceMay2018 andnowhas three seasons under its belt, packing kiwifruit for growers across the Bay of Plenty.
It opened with a 25,000sqm custom-designed bin-curingroom and packhouse, 10 coolstores and eight controlled atmosphere (CA) coolstores. InMayworkwas completed on an extra 10 coolstores and six pre-coolers as part of the facility’s Stage 3development.
The 10,000sqmbuilding and loadout canopy increased MountPack& Cool’s coolstore capacity by a further 2.3 million trays. Stage 4 adds another technically advanced packhouse and bin-curing room, 17CAstores and four morecoolstores.
Lee says thecompanyhad experienced significant growth in three years, having gone from harvesting six million trays in 2018 to 12 million trays in 2020.
Next yearMount Pack& Cool expects to handle at least 15 million trays, including seven million green kiwifruit and eight million trays of gold. This year about a third will be from orchards which MountPack& Cool’s sistercompanyGroPlus manages year round. The remaining two-thirds will be from growerswho managetheirownorchards and sign upannually to haveMountPack& Cool pack their crop.
Somegreen kiwifruit orchards are being converted to gold fruit and, while Zespri continues to release 700ha of SunGold licences each year, Lee expects the companyto handle evenmoregold fruit in the future.
For this reason, its Stage 4 plans include the commissioning of a packhouse purpose-built for gold kiwifruit. Temperature and humidity will be carefully controlled to preserve the fruit quality as itmoves through the facility and out of controlled environments.
“Older packhousesmakeit difficult to pack and ship gold fruit after it comes out of controlled atmosphere becausewhenit returns to ambient temperature, it starts to sweat.
“Our building design will ensure there’s no humidity or sweating on the fruit to give us the ability to extend its shelf life sowecan pack it after the season, direct to order for customers and ship it. Weare the only post-harvest facility in the industry with a set-up like that,” Lee says.
Other innovative features built intoMountPack& Cool’s facility include a grading machine that uses Global Scan, the latest version of camera grading with pinpoint accuracy. Its on-site laboratory can test for fruit pressure, Brix, pests and colour pre-harvest, while its Near Infrared (NIR) grading technology recovers a portion of fruit which has failed to meet Zespri’s dry matter requirements. The high humidity bin and temperature-controlled bin curingroomwith 99 per cent humiditymeansthe fruit doesn’t lose any weight before being packed. This allows growers to achieve the highest possible Class 1 packout.
“Efficiencies built into the design are helping us deliver the best financial returns to growers while enabling us to invest in greater capacity for the future. It’s awin-win.”
MountPack& Cool has supported Tauranga companies during its recent growth. FormNZwasthe lead contractor for its Stage 1 and2 developments and iLine Constructionwas used for Stage 3.
“We’ve completed 35,000sqmof building with local contractors over the past three years. They’ve been significant investments and valuable partnerships.”
Next year the companyexpects to employ about500 seasonal staff, plus 100 permanent staff.
As growers are also increasing production volumes on orchards, they’re looking to partner with us because they can see we’ve futureproofed for growth and greater capacity. Brendon Lee