Major Kiwifruit Alliance Votes In New Chairman

Mon, 28 Jun 2004 14:05:20 +1200

Major Kiwifruit Alliance Votes In New Chairman

G6 Kiwi, the major supplier of kiwifruit to Zespri, has announced the appointment of Te Puke family man, grower and company director Alister Hawkey, 46. A director of G6 Kiwi for nearly five years, Hawkey replaces the company's founding chairman Ian Craig.

Hawkey, who also manages one of the packhouses contracted to supply G6 Kiwi, says he's looking forward to his latest challenge.

"Continuing the culture of co-operation and openness within G6 Kiwi will be one of my biggest challenges," he says.

"A big part of our success is in the fact that various post harvest members can put aside their competitiveness and work together. It's the old story that, collectively, people make better decisions than they do singularly. At G6 Kiwi, we have a collection of expertise."

Hawkey's appointment comes at a high point in G6 Kiwi's six-year history: in the kiwifruit season just ended, the company submitted a record 20.19 million trays of Class 1 standard kiwifruit to Zespri, confirming its status as market leader and Zespri's largest registered supplier.

This season's result is an increase of 4.8 million trays over last season. A further 1.4 million trays of non-standard supply and other classes of Zespri product was also submitted to Zespri this season.

Zespri's CEO, Tim Goodacre, attended a directors' meeting of G6 Kiwi to discuss the milestone kiwifruit season. Goodacre says G6 Kiwi played a major part in Zespri's biggest season ever.

"The challenge for Zespri is always to get the fruit to the market as quickly as possible," he says. "G6 Kiwi had a significant role in making this happen."

Goodacre says the kiwifruit industry is in good shape heading into what is set to be a challenging year. "With six consecutive record years behind it, the industry is sound and has a strong brand to leverage off. However, this year we also have a large crop and ongoing issues with foreign exchange movements."

Outgoing G6 Kiwi chairman Ian Craig says the highlight of his chairmanship was seeing first-hand the company's growth.

"We have increased our market share every year," he says. "The pleasing part is our growth has come through increasing our productivity and efficiency, not through taking on more members."

Craig says G6 Kiwi's success is proof of the value of the supply chain model he and the company's directors established.

G6 Kiwi is an alliance of independently-owned and operated post harvest kiwifruit facilities that came together in 1998. Supplying 25 per cent of the industry volume, the company offers post harvest choice to growers. G6 Kiwi prides itself on offering first class supply chain management.

ENDS

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