Ann: GENERAL: SEK: Seeka reports record crop volumes

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• Summary: GENERAL: SEK: Seeka reports record crop volumes
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					SEK
18/06/2015 10:31
GENERAL
PRICE SENSITIVE
REL: 1031 HRS Seeka Kiwifruit Industries Limited

GENERAL: SEK: Seeka reports record crop volumes

18 June 2015
Seeka update [NZX:SEK]

Seeka reports record crop volumes handled for 2014-15 harvest

Seeka Kiwifruit Industries has packed a record number of trays in the
just-completed 2015 kiwifruit harvest, handling more than 26.3 million class
1 export trays, compared to 20.0 million class 1 trays in 2014.  The total
volume of all classes of kiwifruit is expected to exceed 27.4 million trays
this year.  This compares to the 24.944m forecast to shareholders at ASM held
on 28 April 2015.

Both Hayward [Green] and Gold class 1 volumes are up. Total Hayward packed or
in store for 2015 is 21.8 million trays compared to 18.1 million in the
previous year. Gold volumes in 2015 totalled 4.3 million trays and compare
against 1.7 million in the previous year. Seeka also packed approximately
200,000 trays of the Zespri G14 SweetGreen.

Michael Franks, Seeka Chief Executive advised that the volumes are likely to
be positive to earnings in the current year but cautioned that there is still
a lot of fruit in storage and still to be sold.  Zespri has already released
lower forecast per tray returns reflective of the higher crop volume to be
marketed this season.

Mr Franks advised that this year harvest was a very challenging season. Seeka
did well to recover from a devastating fire at its mega post-harvest site -
Oakside. This site handled over 9 million trays in 2015. Adding to this
pressure, the Industry had to contend with inclement weather patterns and
loadout inefficiencies arising from the new market supply system.

Despite these challenges packing was completed on June 12 - only 3 days later
than 2014.

Green yields were exceptionally good and fruit quality excellent. Supplying
growers took particular care to provide a clean crop and this aided smooth
operations in our packing sheds. All parts of the Seeka supply chain, from
orchard to coolstore performed well.

The Hayward crop which has been the backbone of the Industry through PSA was
well up on expectations. The average orchard yield across the Seeka catchment
is 11,700 trays per hectare [42.12 tonnes] representing an increase of 26%
over last year's average yield of 9,300 trays [33.48 tonnes]. Similarly the
Hayward organic yield was up 29% at 7,852 trays [28.267 tonnes] per hectare.

Seeka's own orchard operations featured well in the increase and in
particular the long term leases that are now progressively coming back into
full production having had significant investment in their redevelopment. In
total the long term leases yielded 928,000 trays in 2015, well up on the
441,000 trays produced in 2014.

Seeka increased cool storage capacity by 2.0 million trays to handle the
additional harvest volumes predicted for 2015. It invested approximately $5
million in a new coolstore at Oakside to store approximately 1 million trays
along with a second 1 million trays of storage constructed at the Pioneer
site by the landlord through a commercial leasing arrangement.

Michael Franks advised that the Company is pleased with the performance to
date and thanked all supplying growers, contractors and staff for their
efforts, and again praised the efforts of the response teams, fire fighters
and contractors for their response to the Oakside fire.

Seeka will provide current year financial guidance when it updates
stakeholders in October.

For further information please contact

Michael Franks
Chief Executive
Seeka Kiwifruit Industries Limited
021-356-516
End CA:00265862 For:SEK    Type:GENERAL    Time:2015-06-18 10:31:01