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6 October 2006

Welcome to the 2006/07 Season

I cannot believe it is spring again so soon. The seasons are definitely getting closer together as I get older I think.

The winter chill this year and the very wet conditions has set up the orchards for an early spring. That is if we don't get any harder frosts.

Crop predictions are for a larger crop than last year, so that is a positive. We have, however, lost a couple of growers - one has pulled out his summerfruit and the other has gone back to support his family connections across town. We wish them the best, as they have been good supporters to Hawke's Bay Clean and we will miss their volume.

The major additions to the packhouse (Kelston Packhouse) reported in my last newsletter are now well worn-in with two apple seasons and one summerfruit season since the alterations, so most if not all the bumps have been smoothed out. The advantages to growers last summerfruit season were fantastic. Larger quality coolstorage and delivery and dispatch areas enabled growers to maintain quality without compromise in some pretty trying weather conditions. Tony Harrington's team were able to enhance our products with excellent coolstorage and improved packing facilities.

Our transport operators are getting the message for better cool control to our customers and with increased awareness from supermarkets to handle our products with care, we believe we delivered better-than-ever quality to the New Zealand markets. Enquiries from overseas for product have had to be turned down until we get airtransport direct from Hawke's Bay and until we can fully satisfy the New Zealand Market.

 

10 October 2005

Welcome to the 2005/06 Season

Spring is in full swing and we felt we needed to bring you up to date with our happenings.

The mild winter and a hard frost in the last month has affected crops, but we still look good for the 2005/06 season with some good volumes of Peaches, Nectarines and Plums. Apricots are looking like a light crop, with the winterchill and frost creating havoc with volumes. We have also lost one grower, so overall volumes are down. We will be looking to increase our membership to lift volumes, but it is always at the last moment before growers will come on board.

Our packhouse, KelstonPack, has made major additions over the last twelve months or so and the advantages are really terrific. A very large coolstore complex and dispatch area has enabled growers to get faster turnaround to deliver and transporters has an excellent facility to collate and load for market. This will ensure quality is maintained and assist the packhouse at peak volume times.

Some small volumes of new varieties are coming on stream and will be advised as the volumes are finalised. Latest volumes are now available for merchants so that consumers can get access to our fruit.

Varieties that at this stage could make reasonable distribution throughout New Zealand include Coconut Ice Peaches and Golden Wairata Apricots.

We also have Bruce Ellingham fully certified organic volumes, so exciting stuff.

We all are registered to Summergreen IFP, a Summerfruit New Zealand initiative, and this means they are catching up with our method of growing cleaner fruit. This is a good thing and we are pleased we were one of the pioneers.

 

11 November 2003

Welcome to the 2003/2004 Season

We've come through the early spring period without any significant frost damage this year, which is a great relief after the losses we all suffered last season. You may recall that summer fruit last season was in very short supply due to a significant frost event last year. This year all of our growers are reporting good crops of good, large-sized fruit. Our weather conditions in November to date have been really sunny and dry, and if this continues we should be able to deliver to you a really high-class product in this season.

Currently we're in the midst of our hand-thinning programme, where we thin our crops down to the level that we think deliver fruit of the optimum size and colour for the market. We have a full range of peaches, plums, apricots and nectarines on all of our trees, and so we hope to be able to keep a good supply of product up to our wholesalers and retailers right through the summer season. All of our growers are participating in the Hawkes Bay Summer Fruit and Summer-Green programme, which aims to minimise the input of pesticides as much as possible, keeping our crops clean and green - one of the fundamental philosophies behind the Hawke's Bay Clean group.

We will try to keep you up to date with our news as it comes to hand, and would welcome your feedback. Now, better go and make sure that those thinners are doing a good job.

 

26 March, 2002 - 2001/2002 Season Wrap Up

Wow, that was a difficult season! All our growers are glad this current summerfruit season is behind us.

Growing summerfruit is very dependant on the climate, and we rely on a typically good hot, dry Hawke's Bay summer to grow and deliver the finest quality summerfruit to you. This season Mother Nature was particularly cruel, with some of the most significant rainfall events the district has ever seen continuously throughout our summer period.

As a result, we did struggle to maintain good fruit quality throughout the season. It affected our packouts significantly, with much more fruit having to be tipped out the reject chute. But we certainly did the best that the climate allowed us to do, and we trust that you were able to consume and enjoy some good quality summerfruit.

As with all weather-reliant products, growing summerfruit tends to be very cyclical, and we have high expectations that the season next year will deliver much kinder environmental conditions. We will keep you posted as the new season unfolds. In the meantime, we will get on with the business of nurturing our crops for the next season, while you no doubt will have to rely on the Central Otago crop and imported product to satisfy your summerfruit demands until we see you again in late November 2002.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our customers for their ongoing support, and we look forward to delivering you the highest quality summerfruit our orchards can provide next season.

 

15 January, 2002

The season is in full swing with a good selection of all summerfruit types being harvested at the moment. One of our favourites, the Fortune plum, is mid-harvest at the moment and is well worth you trying to find. It's the large, red plum - and when I say large, I mean LARGE. At first look you might think it is a nectarine, however your greengrocer will be able to put you right.

To get the best flavour out of Fortune, leave them in the fruit bowl until they soften to touch and change to a deeper red/purplish colour. Then you will experience the full aromatic flavour of this new exciting cultivar.

You may have also seen on the news that Hawke's Bay is receiving an unusually high amount of rainfall this summer. As a group, we are doing our utmost to keep the rot levels down to reasonable levels. To help your fruit keep, it is worth placing the fruit that you don't want to eat for a few days in the fridge.

The season this year is running about a week ahead of normal, and you should take that into account when consulting the calendar which gives you an idea of when the different varieties are ready.

It's time to dig out your ice cube trays and blender - to help you counter the summer heat, we have added a "Drinks and Smoothies" section to our Recipes page. From next week we will also be adding Spreads and Preserves to let you enjoy summerfruit through the year.

 

   HB Clean
   Growers
   Packhouse
 		   News
   Philosophy
    Calendar
   Recipes
   Apricots
    Nectarines
   Peaches
   Plums
    Related Sites
   Contacts