Newspaper Article – 20m-carton apple target

20m-carton apple target

Enza New Zealand, the Apple and Pear Marketing Board’s export arm, expects to export 20- million cartons of apples by the year 2000.

North Island and Hawke’s Bay manager Mark Carrington said more than half this quantity was expected to be grown in Hawke’s Bay.

As volumes increased, technological advances and good management should reduce packing costs over the next five years, he said.

Speaking at Hawke’s Bay Chamber of Commerce’s rural conference, Mr Carrington said the board’s role in shaping the nature of packhouses in the future to handle this volume would be merely to set specifications.

“What decisions packhouse operators make in meeting these specifications will be entirely up to them.”

The biggest impact on future packhouse operations would be that imposed by competition from other packhouse operators. While some board policies might sharpen that focus compared to the past, the investment decisions or operational decisions which industry participants made would depend on what they believed would maximise the return on their investment.

“The aim of all should be to minimise the post harvest costs which growers paid, and the creation of economic signals to encourage this,” Mr Carrington said.

Photo caption – Mr Carrington