We hereby give notice that the 2017 Te Awanui Huka Pak Limited Annual General Meeting of Shareholders will be held on Thursday 27 July 2017, 4pm at Seeka Huka Pak, 221 Totara Street, Mount Maunganui.

ELECTION OF DIRECTORS
Vacancy
The positions of Gerry Gardiner and Neil Te Kani are up for rotation and being eligible, both offer themselves for re-election.

Election Process
At the Annual General Meeting on 27 July 2017, voting forms will be provided to all shareholders and/or proxy holders in attendance. Each shareholder is eligible to vote for two candidates to be elected as directors.

Nominations
Nominations can be made using the enclosed Nomination Form and must include a nominator and seconder. Nominees are required to provide a one-page biography for circulation to shareholders.
Nominations must be received by Te Awanui Huka Pak no later than 5pm, Friday 7 July 2017.

AGENDA AND PROXY FORMS
The agenda and proxy forms will be circulated on Wednesday 12 July 2017.

For general queries, please contact Ngaria Rolleston on 07 572 5955 or email ngaria@teawanui.co.nz

Ratahi Cross (left) Chairman, Te Awanui Huka Pak Ltd and Michael Ahie (right), Chairman, Plant and Food Research sign Strategic Partnership Kawenata

On the 19th of April 2017, Te Awanui Huka Pak and Plant and Food Research NZ commemorated their strategic partnership through a signing of a Kawenata. The signing of these Kawenata commemorated the commitment to working together over the next 12 months on key projects that will bring value to both parties. The Kawenata is supported by a 12 month project plan that identifies opportunities for collaboration that will advance the cultural, collective and commercial interests of Maori.

"Plant and Food Research are a key player in the food and beverage value chain and we're driven to see more Maori in that space" Te Horipo Karaitiana, GM, Te Awanui Huka Pak Ltd.

One of the key focus areas of the Kawenata involves promoting and supporting more Maori to enter Science and Technology fields. To show their support, Plant and Food Research have created a scholarship specifically for Maori which will be run through the Te Awanui Kiwi Leaders programme which includes a financial component as well as a summer studentship programme.

​"We're excited to explore our relationship with Plant and Food Research and the opportunities this will bring for Maori." Ngaria Rolleston, Communications and Business Development Manager, Te Awanui Huka Pak Ltd.

Te Puke, 30 March - Seeka Ltd’s iconic new head office in the kiwifruit heartland of Te Puke was opened today by the Maori King, HM Kiingi Tuheitia. The ceremony was attended by Trade Minister Todd McClay and some 700 growers, local government officials and community leaders.

Seeka has spent more than a year and $4 million rebuilding, modernising and customising the well-known kiwifruit slice-shaped 18-sided (octodecagon) building, a 1200 square metre former tourist centre set in 7.5 hectares of countryside just outside Te Puke.  

NZX-listed Seeka is Australasia’s biggest kiwifruit grower and a leading premium produce company.

“We had outgrown our old head office,” said Chief Executive Michael Franks.

“Last year we rebranded and repositioned the company and we now have a head office that is consistent with our vision for the company. We remain close to Te Puke and are headquartered amongst our growers in a modern, user-friendly building that will allow us to engage much more effectively with them.”

HM Kiingi Tuheitia said the Kingitanga had a long association with Tauranga Moana.

“We are honoured to take part in opening the new Seeka head office. Maori trusts are the largest New Zealand shareholder group in Seeka and the company has been a committed partner of iwi in helping our people develop their resources. I am delighted to be here to demonstrate our ongoing engagement with the region, and our support for Seeka and what it is doing for the kiwifruit industry and for all of us economically.”

Mr Franks said Seeka was equally honoured that HM Kiingi Tuheitia had agreed to formally open the new headquarters. Seeka has had a long association with iwi in the region, and the original building and land for the new head office was acquired from a local Maori Trust.

“We have delivered on the promise we made when we purchased the land,” he said. “We are committed to our growers, stakeholders, and to the local iwi and the community. This new headquarters allows us to bring all of the strands of our business together and is a great place for us to welcome our growers.”

Trade Minister and Rotorua MP Todd McClay said Seeka’s investment showed the great strengths of the Bay of Plenty kiwifruit industry.

“The sector is creating jobs and is an extremely important part of New Zealand’s export profile. As a local MP and Trade Minister, I’m always keen to support great local initiatives that deliver benefits to our community.”

Mr Franks said that in the short- to medium-term, Seeka planned to relocate its existing laboratory in Te Puke township to new premises adjoining the head office.

“And we intend in the longer term to develop this site into a campus for all aspects of our business. Given the planned industrial park just across the road, we would like to see a cluster of related businesses here in what has traditionally been the heartland of kiwifruit.”

Seeka worked with local Te Puke firm Architectural Page Henderson to renovate the unusual 18-sided structure, originally built in 1985 as a tourist centre and designed to look like a slice of kiwifruit. The key changes have included creating segmented office spaces for the staff around the outside perimeter of the building - each with a view of the countryside - with the largely open plan central area free for visitors and meeting spaces. The new offices also include a gym and showers, and a cafeteria.

The renovations retained the structure’s original structure of rafters cantilevered off a central column made up of wooden poles. Other features include new air conditioning, a new roof with skylights allowing fresh air to flush through the building, custom-built LED environmentally sensitive lighting, and an IT-based security system with swipe cards. Office equipment includes adjustable standup desks. Seeka has also removed desk/office based printers and now has just three, with individual printouts accessed via swipe card on demand.

There are now around 80 staff in the new head office, up from 60 in the old one. The finance, corporate, health and safety, post harvest, orchard, grower services and IT departments are now all based in the new head office.

“The staff love the new work space, and especially the access to the rural location where they can go for walks or run during breaks,” said Seeka General Manager Grower Services and Marketing Annmarie Lee.

“We have moved out and into our community of growers. It’s a much more inviting location with plenty of parking. We want people to drop in to visit and have a coffee.”

Mrs Lee said the redesign retained personal space for all staff members, while providing plenty of communal areas and pods for meetings, as well as hot desk points for staff visiting from other locations.
 “We also have a 150-seat auditorium for our grower and staff events, which will also potentially be accessible for community use.”

-ENDS-

Zespri this week updated its December forecast to kiwifruit growers on global sales for 2016, showing average returns up across all grower pools and a total forecast fruit and service payment of $1.37 billion.


However, green yields are expected to be down in the coming season, which will pose a challenge for Zespri in keeping open new developing markets, said Zespri chairman Peter McBride.


The latest green forecast for 2016 is $4.35 per tray, up 13 cents on the December forecast. Mr McBride said green fruit had benefited at the end of the season from a clean finish, with reduced offshore fruit loss and lower provisions for incentives and fruit quality claims.


"It's great to see a strong finish to the season in our markets, which has reduced forecast costs and increased the return to growers across all categories," said Mr McBride.

Green organic was up 26 cents to $6.75 per tray, gold was up 22 cents to $8.52, and Green14 per tray return up 10 cents to $5.69, compared to the December forecast. Gold per-tray returns were up slightly despite New Zealand volumes nearly doubling from 27.5 million trays to more than 45m trays. The final 2016 result is expected in May.


Zespri was forced to crop manage about 5m trays of green last year, by disposing of them largely as fodder in order to maintain prices. But following two consecutive years of record high green yields, the forecast for this year's harvest is for a greatly reduced yields - about 70m trays compared to about 90m trays last year.


Mr McBride said crop management had been the most effective way to maintain market prices in the face of the massive volumes last year. But this year's harvest - which begins next month - was expected to be a mixed bag, with variability in green yields across orchards.


"Everyone's down generally, but some people are down a lot more than others," said Mr McBride.


Noting that Zespri still saw potential growth in the green market, he said the biggest issue would be keeping new developing markets open, because they would be needed to sustain future growth when volumes picked up again.


Mr McBride said he expected that this year class 2 green fruit - normally sold only in New Zealand and Australia - would come into play to help fill developing markets like India.


Kiwifruit Growers Inc chairman Doug Brown said the clean finish to the 2016 sales season had been welcomed by growers. But he acknowledged the reduced green yields for the coming season posed problems for the industry.


"This year's green crop will be well back on 2016, " he said. "But that was the second year of back-to-back high yields."
While the improved prices expected from lower volumes of green could help improve pricing, it was unlikely to offset the expected poorer yields overall, he said. But on the positive side, early indications were that dry matter was up on 2016, and the green fruit was predicted to be a little larger.


The reduced green volumes will present a particular challenge to the Bay of Plenty's post-harvest operators, most of which have made significant investments in increasing capacity over the past couple of years.


Stuart Weston, general manager of Apata, said many companies had now "pressed the pause button" on future development until volumes begin to pick up again.


"Because of the lead times, we have to make commitments long before the crop volumes present themselves," he said, noting Apata had recently completed a new facility in Te Puke.


"We're disappointed volumes are down relative to where we were hoping they might be. But in the long term we know we made the right decision to add capacity."
​

Zespri net profit estimate (corporate):
- Year to March 2017: $71-74 million.

A Hawke's Bay kiwifruit orchard property sold just prior to Christmas for $40.2 million, believed to be a record price for any sale of New Zealand kiwifruit or horticultural land.

PGG Wrightson Real Estate general manager Peter Newbold said it was one of the largest sales, by value, of any New Zealand rural property.

"In recent months, values for premium Bay of Plenty orchards have exceeded the $800,000 per canopy hectare threshold. This time last year, similar properties were selling for $600,000 per canopy hectare and, two years ago, they were around the $450,000 per canopy hectare mark. Sentiment among growers is extremely positive, with all indications that the market will remain buoyant for at least the next five years.

"Many observers will be gratified that this transaction took place between two New Zealand-based entities. Even for sales of this magnitude, locals have the capacity to purchase New Zealand rural property, despite competition from overseas interests.

"This is a remarkable sale by any standard, reflecting the kiwifruit sector's outstanding confidence and reinforcing its bright future in comparison to the struggles it went through following the PSA virus a few years ago," he said

The orchards, 12km northwest of Hastings, were developed more than 20 years ago by the vendors, whose family are long established in Hawke's Bay. Now into its third year producing G3 gold kiwifruit, the new owner is the Ngai Tukairangi Trust, which has considerable kiwifruit interests in the Bay of Plenty.

PGG Wrightson Real Estate's Stan Robb said: "In addition to its size, which considerably exceeds almost all other kiwifruit orchards, this property is situated in an area recognised for bumper crops of large fruit that attract premium early start incentives. It is a property developed to a high standard, with excellent infrastructure, ag-beam and wire pergolas, artificial shelter, frost protection and irrigation. Included in the sale were an ex-packhouse, a manager's home, office accommodation and a full range of orchard machinery," he said.

He said demand for gold kiwifruit property was phenomenal.

"Zespri's confirmation in November that it will release another 400 hectares of licences for gold kiwifruit in 2017 further consolidated the exceptional confidence the sector has shown over the past few seasons.
​
"Although this sale is a record price for horticulture property, which is unlikely to be surpassed for some time, on a per canopy hectare basis, its value is well within the range of recent sales and this transaction is most reasonably judged in that context."

Kiwi consumers could soon have their pick of a new super-sized superfood - a jumbo blueberry the size of a $2 coin.
The new player dwarfs the typical blueberry Kiwis are used to munching in muffins and its backers expect that New Zealand production of the juicy heavyweight will pull in $8 million in the first two seasons alone.
Dubbed the "Eureka", the behemoth berry is among an Aussie-grown range to which transtasman company BerryCo has acquired the exclusive New Zealand rights, and the first 40ha will be planted here over the next couple of months.

The home-grown purple monsters will be initially sold into Southeast Asian markets - a 200g punnet can fetch $12.95 in Singapore - but they could also appear on New Zealand store shelves as early as next summer.
Sourced from Australia's Mountain Blue Orchards, the jumbo fruit have promisingly high yields - and their bulky size means fewer fruit are needed to fill punnets.

Eureka's export potential in Southeast Asia hadn't been tested until last year, when BerryCo - a joint venture between Bay of Plenty's Southern Produce and Valleyfresh in Victoria - shipped about 300 tonnes of the jumbo berries to markets in Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates.

The company's director, Carwyn Williams, said the big berries also attracted promising feedback when presented at a Hong Kong trade expo.
"We came away with more customers and more orders than we can currently supply but that's a good problem to have," Williams said.
"As the New Zealand-grown berries become available for export, we will have hungry, ready-made markets waiting, including food service, catering and bakery lines in Europe."

Growers will also get a glimpse of the Eureka when BerryCo shares some of its research at a Tauranga field day next week.

Since receiving around 2000 plants in November, researchers at the company's Tauranga facility have been working alongside PlusGroup Horticulture on trials and testing new potting substrate mixes.
The team was joined by two Waikato University researchers, who monitored the growth and development of the nursery plants.

The company will be delivering its first 200,000 propagated plants to licensed growers this year, with the first plants distributed for planting in March. Today, about 700ha of
blueberry crops are grown in New Zealand, with about 25 commercial growers and another 50 part-time.
In 2015-16, the overall value of our blueberry industry was $57 million, with a $35 million export market that could grow to more than $60 million by 2022.

The fruits of Kiwi innovation
New Zealand has a rich and often-strange history of innovating new and improved fruit and vegetables. Here's our pick of the crop.
'The Richie McCaw of kiwifruit': Scientists had their work cut out for them when they were tasked with developing a new kiwifruit to improve on what has been one of the world's most popular New Zealand-grown fruit: the Green or Hayward.
Likened to creating the 'Richie McCaw of kiwifruit', that title might have been better suited to the Hayward, which, for 60 years, had been unmatched in its high yield, long storage time, flavoursome taste and nutritional firepower.
Just one of the furry, oval-shaped fruits pack more fibre than four sticks of celery and more vitamin C than an orange.
But scientists at Zespri and Plant and Food Research have succeeded in finding what's poised to be the new jewel of our billion-dollar kiwifruit industry.
And the Zespri New Green is better to eat, ripens easily and lasts longer.

Is it a pear? Is it an apple? Nope, it's a papple: Kiwi researchers played a part in creating this odd fruit, but naturally, it was the UK press that gave it a memorable nickname: the papple.
2012 saw the debut of the apple-shaped pear - a hybrid of Chinese and Japanese varieties that was developed by state-owned Plant and Food Research and grown in Motueka.
The fruit were noted for having the same crisp, juicy texture as nashi pears but a taste more like European pears, with sweeter and more complex flavours than Asian varieties.
Shortly after they hit markets overseas, we conducted an informal taste test in Wellington: verdicts ranged from "really, really good" to "kind of lame".
More recently, Plant and Food Research was behind the biggest new apple variety launched since Royal Gala: the big, sweet and brightly-coloured "Dazzle", which took nearly 20 years to perfect.
​
This super-spud is a real beauty: Hopes are high for a new bright-skinned beauty in the potato patch that scrubs up well.
That's the White Beauty, a cross between the disease-resistant Summer Delight potato and the old multipurpose Australian favourite Coliban.
The result is a bright, versatile potato that is extremely high-yielding.
Launched last year, the spud, produced from a 15-year breeding programme at Plant and Food Research, packs a lower sugar and higher dry matter content than many other potatoes in the fresh market potato range, such as Nadine, the most widely consumed white potato.
This means it makes a good mash and is great for roasting, as well as being delicious boiled whole, making it a more versatile potato for consumers.
Although White Beauty was bred specifically for New Zealand conditions, it was also being evaluated in both Australia and the USA.

10:22 am on 5 August 2015 
Jo O'Brien for Te Manu Korihi - joanne.o'brien@radionz.co.nz

The group - which includes chairs and executives of Maori authorities - is currently in Japan, and will go on to Singapore, Malaysia and China.

Federation of Maori Authorities chair Traci Houpapa said Māori were already exporting produce into the region, but this trip would help establish what opportunities there might be to gain better returns.

Ms Houpapa said she was excited the tour was a Maori initiative that had been led by Māori-owned kiwifruit business Te Awanui Huka Pak, alongside kiwifruit marketer Zespri.

She said regardless of the good work the government was doing to secure trade agreements, such as the Trans Pacific Partnership, Māori authorities were not waiting for permission to develop trade opportunities.

The delegation will meet with importers and attend the opening of a new Zespri hub in Singapore.

The group includes delegates from the Far North, as well as Gisborne and the East Coast.

By Ripeka Timutimu 4:16pm, Tuesday 23 December 2014

​A group of Māori kiwifruit growers are looking to get a slice of the million-dollar European fruit market in the New Year.

‘Te Awanui Huka Pak’ from the Bay of Plenty is a leader in the kiwifruit industry and they say huge profits could be made on the other side of the world.

Te Awanui Huka Pak Chairman, Neil Te Kani says they've had huge success in the Asian region, and now it's time to expand their horizons.

‘Ngai Tukairangi Trust’ has produced kiwi fruit for many years and they were lucky enough to survive the PSA virus.

Neil knows of one Maori grower that has joined the group taking the government to court over the PSA issue.

With Te Awanui Huka Pak evading the wrath of the PSI virus there’s no doubt brighter days lie ahead for the company.