Jason Te Brake: Zespri CEO on the record season of sales

Zespri’s largest-ever crop has topped $5 billion in global sales  

After some challenging seasons, the kiwifruit company has exceeded their long-term goals by $500 million. 

The record season saw the sale of close to 221 million trays of Kiwifruit, compared to 164 million the previous year. 

Zespri CEO Jason Te Brake told Mike Hosking it comes after a decade of investing heavily in the brand. 

He says they've been able to give good returns back to growers after some challenging years.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We can let you know that Zesbury has joined the
growing list of New Zealand producers who have had a
tremendous season. The crack five billion in global sales sold
a record two hundred and twenty million trays. That's compared
with one hundred and sixty four million last season. Jason
to Break is Esbury's CEO. Of course he's back with us.
Jason Morning, Morning, Mike, call you. Now, I'm ex strait well,
not as well as you. I mean one hundred and

(00:20):
sixty four to two hundred and twenty I mean that that,
I mean one hundred and sixty four to one hundred
and eighties, but I mean that's a massive increase. Where's
it all gone?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, So, I mean we've been able to have a
pretty strong rebound from where we had last year, where
we had a pretty challenging season on the back of
quite a few different weather events throughout New Zealand. We've
been able to actually get good value and it's really
come off the back of a decade or so of
investing heavily in the brand, in our supply chain to
make sure you gets through or around the world into

(00:52):
our key markets and also gets good value for that
to bring back to our growers as well.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
So the quantity side of the equation. I mean, it's
all very well to grow an amount, but you've got
to be able to sell it. How big is demand
potentially if you can make this sort of leap.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, I mean, we're looking to continue to make sure
we build demand a head of supply. So we do
that through both investing heavily in our brand, making sure
I really positioned around natural nutrition in the market, which
is very positive at the moment that a lot of
people around the world want healthy fruit products and are
willing to pay good money for good quality, so we're

(01:28):
able to offer that. But ultimately we see an opportunity
to continue to lift going forward into the next ten
years or so as well.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Are you eating somebody else's lunch or are you growing
new markets or they did buy cum quots and now
they're buying Zesbrey.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
I mean, look, we're trying to make sure we compete
for more share of the fruit bowl. If you think
about the global fruit bowl, we're actually a very small
percentage of that, so we are competing for people's stomachs.
But at the same time, we're seeing our rise and
consumers that are wanting to pay more and I am
more for their premium fruit products. So we have seen

(02:04):
more consumers around the world moving towards more natural products.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Like fruit workers through a Green, Golden Red. What's the story.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
So Gold continues to be, you know, in terms of
the growth has been the strongest performer. What we've been
able to see is a strong rebound on Green as well.
I mean Green was pretty challenging for us the year
before with a lot of our crop that was sort
of taken out by frosts and cyclones. We've seen a
good rebound there, so still a very strong piece of

(02:34):
our portfolio. And then Red as fantastic as exciting. Consumers
around particularly through Asia are getting a really good sense
of that and enjoying the virancy of a new product
in the category.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
I mean without putting too find a point on it
and being crass. I mean individual grass must be rolling
and die. I mean, you can't sell this much stuff
without really doing well.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, I think the main thing we've been able to
give some good returns back to our growers this season.
It's come off the back of essentially a couple of
years of pretty challenging times. For them both from a
production level, but also costs, costs that continue to increase
on orchids, so we've got to make sure we keep
lifting the bar to make sure that we're making sure
they can make money as.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Well, which is my final question. Is there more where
this came from?

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Look, we've got another big crop this year where we're
about twenty percent of the way through selling that, so
we're making sure we can secure good value. But as
you look around the world at the moment, yes, is
just a bit of a challenging environment making sure we
can do that. So that's the focus right now, securing
good value for the season's crop, to make sure that
growers are still at a profitable level for this season.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Good on you, mate, Always good to catch up, especially
on the good news. Jason to break Who's the Zesbury CEO?
With us this morning. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
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