Kiwifruit marketer Zespri enjoyed a strong year in 2014-15, but faced "headwinds" in the year ahead from weakness in the euro and yen, chief executive Lain Jager (pictured) told the annual meeting on Wednesday.
The return of Chile to the market after its biggest southern competitor bounced back from severe, crop-damaging frosts also had an impact, he said. The grower-funded global marketing organisation has enjoyed a strong bounce-back after the sector was ravaged by the effects of the Psa virus in 2010, with increased volumes and good grower returns recorded for the year just passed.
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Mr Jager said that foreign exchange continued to affect grower returns over the financial year ended March 31, before the New Zealand dollar started to fall sharply, reducing payments by $58.1 million in 2014-15. However Zespri's hedging policy offset the strength of the NZ dollar by $103.7 million compared to the spot rate, he said. "While Zespri is very positive about the outlook for delivering strong, sustainable returns to growers and shareholders, we note considerable headwinds weighing on future returns including the relative weakness of the euro and yen and recovery of Chilean volumes," he said.
Zespri chairman Peter McBride said the organisation had had delivered $1.57 billion of sales in the 2014-15 season, up 16 per cent on the previous year. Total fruit and service payments for the season were up 17 per cent to $939 million. Sales volumes were up 11 per cent to 95.2 million trays, and were set to grow to over 130 million trays in the next five years. "As well these headline numbers, Zespri delivered excellent returns to growers and developed sales platforms for the increasing gold volumes in both new and existing markets," said Mr McBride.
