Paul Paynter: Yummy Fruit Company General Manager on the company stopping apple exports to the US due to tariffs

A major New Zealand apple grower is pulling the pin on exporting to the US due to Donald Trump's tariffs.  

Export tariffs for New Zealand increased to 15% in August. 

New Zealand's $70 million of apple exports were excluded from exemptions last month. 

Yummy Fruit Company General Manager Paul Paynter told Heather du Plessis-Allan turning away from the US has been an easy decision. 

He says if the US wants to charge tariffs and Yummy Fruit can sell its apples elsewhere, that's what they'll do. 

Paynter says apple exports to the US have fallen about 30% in the past two years. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of the country's major apple growers, is calling it
quits on sending fruit to the US because of the tariffs.
Yummy Apples reckons it's just not worth it anymore. Last season,
the apples they sent stateside returned a dollar less than
they cost to produce. Paul Painter is the general manager
of Yummy Fruit and with US Morning Paul, Good morning Paul.
Was this a tough decision or was this something that
you could see coming for a while.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
No, not a tough decision at all. Basically, if they
want to charge you fifteen percent tariff and you can
sell it somewhere else, it's what you'll do. So apple
exports to the US have fallen about thirty percent in
the last two years. I think the tariff's probably a
big part of that.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, I mean, is the tariff's the straw that broke
the camel's back, Because it looks like there are other
issues going on there as well, like oversupply, and therefore,
you know, lower profits are lower lower prices.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Oh, you're well informed. Yes, Wall streets taken over the
apple growing business. I always say when the big city
money's and farming, the end is nigh. But that's what's happened.
So they've parted a lot of new apples and the
market's a bit a bit depressed, a little bit oversupplied,
and so they slap a tariff on our products in
terms of apples, but in terms of things like beef,

(01:07):
where they're short and the prices are high and the
consumers using the tath disappears.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Now, where are you going to send your fruit instead?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Well, that's a good question. Well, if it's a sweet apple,
you've probably set it off to two Asia, somewhere in
China obviously being the biggest market. But the challenges if
it's a tart apple like a brayburn. In the US
through the Northeast and Midwest, you've got the Scandinavian, Polish, Gyman,
Irish people that like a bit of a tart apple,

(01:37):
and the Chinese certainly don't. So it is a predicament.
But what we're seeing is a real drop and those
are the production of those tart apples. So Bravery used
to be the biggest shipped apple in New Zealand, and
I think now it's down to about five percent of explorers.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Now, I love the tart apples. What about you?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Oh yeah, I love them too, But you're the white girl.
I'm a what you're the white girl?

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Well, I mean I one hundred percent of Irish stock
and all that kind of stuff, So you know, it's
it's genetic. It's my tea Kunger. Basically it is. If
the tariffs are gone, right, if Trump changes his mind,
which is not unheard of, will you resume the exports
or stick with the new markets?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Ah, it's still a tough market. I will ship some
to the US at the CAFs were there, but it's
definitely a fading light for New Zealand way while places
like China are booming.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, and what's next year? Is harvest looking like I'm
hearing it's pretty good?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Oh, unbelievable, the warmest spring I can ever remember. So
fruit size is big, not a lot of frosts, really
clean fruit where there's absolutely perfect. So you know we're
sicking here in a row. We're having your wonderful production season,
hippy growlers here.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Oh, I'm so pleased to hear that. Paul, look after yourself, mate,
have a nice stat it's Paul paint, a yummy fruit
company general manager. Tell you what it is. I reckon
and I'm just making this up on the spot because
I haven't actually spent a great deal of time thinking
about this, but I reckon the benefit of the tart
apple over the sweet apples. The tart apples quite a
tidy snack. So you eat it and you end up
you can like if you if you're prepare to go

(03:07):
core and all, which is what I'm into, Like, you know,
waste not, want not kind of thing, eat the whole thing.
You're just left with that little stick at the end,
and you haven't even got anything on your hands. But
you eat yourself one of those sweet apples, and you've
got sticky hands because they seem to This is just
I mean, I'm just I'm reaching back into the recesses
of my mind. But I feel like the sweet apples
are juicy, are kind of stickier, kind of messier thing,

(03:28):
which is like not really what you want out of
an apple. You eat the core, absolutely, I eat the core.
Don't you eat the core?

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Not?

Speaker 1 (03:34):
The seeds are yeah, the seeds, yeah, just swallow them,
swallow them home.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
You know that's what they make.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, But I also know that they come in case
in their own little protective barrier. It's like a little
seed condom, isn't it, and you pop that, don't worry
about it just so you eat the seed condom, making
it sound efotatic. It's a bit of fire before you,
which you need. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast.

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