Board and apple firm differ only on means

Press, 19 December 1989, Page 26

Board and apple firm differ only on means

The differences between Apple Fields and the Apple and Pear Marketing Board were business not philosophic, the company’s shareholders were told at yesterday’s annual meeting. An Apple Fields executive director, Mr Tom Kain, said that an example was the company's opposition to the board’s “price-smooth-ing” operations in apple varieties. In the coming year, such pricesmoothing would cost the company $700,000, so the company’s stand was a straight business decision. Mr Kain also advocated deregulation of the domestic apple market,leaving the board to export apples to overseas countries, other than Australia. Under the Closer Economic Relations (CER) agreement with Australia, individual Australian growers would be able to export apples to New r Zealand, but under present board regulations New Zealand growers could only go through the board. Mr Kain said he would like to see New Zealand growers have the

same opportunity as Australians would get under the CER onemarket policy, with the board responsible for remaining markets. Mr Kain also said that there was no animosity between the board and Apple Fields over recent court actions involving transferrable crop certificates. “I believe that the courts are the only available forum to debate such ideas, even if barristers do cost heaps.” Mr John McCliskie, chairman of the Apple and Pear Marketing Board, was present at the Apple Fields’ meeting, and both Mr Kain, and the company’s chairman, Sir Allan Wright, welcomed Mr McCluskie to the meeting. Sir Allan Wright said that Apple Fields was predicting an apple harvest of more than 460,000 bushels from its 11 producing orchards this year (200,000 bushels last year). “Up until yesterday there appeared to be no problems, but Canterbury experienced hailstorms overnight.”

However, Sir Allan added that he had just received a report about the orchards and only one had experienced any hail (a company executive later said that it would be between 24 hours and 36 hours before any damage to the orchard’s fruit would be known). It had only been 12 weeks since construction started on Apple Fields’ new packing centre on the proposed 40.4 ha Canterbury Produce Park, Hornby, and Sir Allan said he had been assured that the centre would begin running later next month. The company would have the most modern and efficient packing centre in the country. Mr Kain said that the centre would be looking to put through 50,000 tonnes of apples from the company’s orchards, equal to 17 shipments from the Port of Lyttelton. This would be 25 per cent of the capacity of the packing centre, and the company was seeking to handle fruit for other producers to use up the remaining downtime, he said.