Northern hemisphere to supply for the lack of fruit

After a season like the southern hemisphere kiwifruit industry had with severe frosts, cyclones, severe rain events, low sunlight hours, and poor pollination, the northern hemisphere is making up for Zespri’s 12-month supply. The southern hemisphere projected 30 million less trays of fruit than previous years in August’s update.

The northern hemisphere is currently projected to produce around 29 million trays (100,000t equivalent) this season compared to their previous of 24 million trays (88,000t equivalent). A 5 million tray increase is the equivalent to 20.83% increase. This is an impressive volume considering the southern hemisphere lost 18.13% of fruit from the previous record-breaking season. These fruit volumes are Zespri branded sales and does not include individual sales of fruit.

The northern hemisphere grows Kiwifruit in multiple different countries such as Italy, France, Greece, Japan, and Korea. This volume increase is a great result after the extreme heat and weather events last year in Asia and Europe which impacted fruit size, yield, and quality. The poor performance of the previous year may have made a large impact on the current year’s volumes due to the lack of stress the plants would be under with lower yields and smaller fruit. This would allow for the plants to recover and be able to produce large volumes this season. The northern hemisphere expects to double its volume by the year 2030.