Welcome to our Autumn Newsletter,
I hope you have managed to stay safe through the recent challenging times of alert level 4 lockdown. Darling Group and Just Avocados are fortunate to be operating in an essential industry and apart from most staff working from home during this time and into level three – we were all able to carry on as normal with harvesting and packing – with of course the necessary protocols in place for hygiene and physical distancing.
When our Woodland Road packhouse was audited by MPI in mid-April, on our protocols in place for operating during this time, Just Avocados was commended on the high level of procedure we had put in place and operated to in such a short time. Thank you to the team for putting in place and adapting to the protocols quickly to ensure we could continue operating for those growers with fruit still to process for the local market.
Looking ahead, crop estimate 1 was released by New Zealand Avocado on 22 April showing a total crop of 7.2m trays. This is slightly up from 2019-20 actuals of 7.0m trays. Estimate 1 for the 2019-20 season was 6.3m trays.
Exciting news for the business is the appointment of Andrew Cutfield to GM Investor Relations and Supply. With a focus on avocado supply, Andrew’s responsibilities at Darling Group are identifying and creating new equity partnerships, managing existing partnerships and working with the Just Avocados Grower Services team to manage supply from privately owned orchards. Andrew has been a Just Avocados grower for seven years and was also a Trustee on the Just Avocados Trust for five years. His background of ten years in rural banking with ASB and prior to that in forestry managing large scale operations and developments has set him up well to add value to our grower base and investment partners.
Just Avocados’ supply agreements for the new season will be out shortly. If you have any questions about the season ahead please contact John, Kyra, Andrew C. or Jacob.
Inside the following pages, Erica goes in-depth on Phytophthora and how to protect your orchard. We feature an impressive new method of growing under full shade netting. John and Kyra give a roundup of what’s happening in Northland and the Bay of Plenty and Ashley shares a little more detail on the change from NZGAP to GLOBALG.A.P.
Click the link below to download the full newsletter – Happy reading.
Regards,
Andrew Darling