Global sales for the kiwifruit marketer Zespri have exceeded $4 billion for the first time - 12 percent up on the previous year.
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Its operating revenue which includes the money it makes from selling gold and red kiwifruit licences reached $4.47b.
The profit after tax was $361.5 million, up from $277m last year.
Zespri chief grower, industry and sustainability officer Carol Ward said this was a rewarding result given the Covid-19 challenges.
" We've seen a long term investment in our brand, and the partnerships that we have in the industry. This has been a lot of really hard to work to overcome what has been a really challenging season with Covid and supply chain disruptions," Ward said.
"And we had a record crop of 200 million trays of fruit, the first time we've been able to grow that amount of fruit to meet the demand in the market."
The crop was 11 percent up on the previous year.
The results saw direct returns to the New Zealand industry increase to a record $2.47b including loyalty payments, with earnings spread through regional communities including Bay of Plenty, Northland, Nelson, Gisborne, and Waikato.
Zespri said grower returns remained strong in a challenging season, with per hectare returns representing the second best on record across all varieties.
On average green kiwifruit returned $75,494 per hectare and SunGold kiwifruit returned on average $176,026 per hectare.
Organic SunGold kiwifruit averaged $143,772 per hectare.
Zespri chief executive Dan Mathieson said the result was pleasing given how significant the challenges were in the 2021/22 season.
"These included ongoing supply chain disruption, shifting weather patterns, tightening regulations, changes to fruit flows, increasing competition in the market, labour shortages, late season fruit quality issues, significant cost increases and international trade challenges.
"Exporters right around the world have been tested, and our industry again rose to the challenge to deliver strong results in the toughest of circumstances," he said.
Non-New Zealand Supply sales increased to $536.9m.
Mathieson said global financial performance reached new levels, despite some weather-related challenges in Europe, with volumes of about 26.5 million trays.
"The growth of our offshore production remains critically important, boosting our efforts to serve our consumers year round, helping to hold our shelf space, make our marketing investment more efficient and to maintain commercial partnerships to allow us to launch our New Zealand sales season," he said.
The 2022/23 season's crop is lower volumes than initially forecast, but Ward said that should not pose a problem for Zespri's sales campaigns.
