Confidence despite kiwifruit rejects

Press, 14 October 1986, Page 32

Confidence despite kiwifruit rejects

PA Wellington About a third of the kiwifruit grown this year for export did not meet the stringent specifications set down.

As a result, about $l5O million of a possible $5OO million worth of export kiwifruit was loaded on to the domestic market or dumped. In spite of this, the manager of the Bay of Plenty Community College’s quality assurance unit, Mr Alan Harre, is

confident about the future of the export industry. Together with the Kiwifruit Authority the unit will be holding a series of seminars designed to introduce quality assurance into industry management.

Quality assurance involved making sure the systems used were reliable and could produce high quality fruit consistently, Mr Harre said. When problems occurred it meant fixing them at

the source. Many growers and packhouse operators were making a conscious effort to create their own production system. But changes within the industry were unlikely to be spectacular. “From Japanese and American experiences with quality assurance it could take as long as 15 years for this system to become firmly established within the whole industry,” Mr Harre said.