The Country 25/08/25: Dom Jones talks to Jamie Mackay

The Managing Director of corporate kiwifruit grower, Origin Capital Partners.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tom Jones is joining me from Origin Capital Partners and DIME.
I know you hate the word corporate, but you guys
are corporate Kiwi fruit growers. You must be raking it in.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hi, Jamie. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, we have
a couple of funds which we manage for about two
hundred and fifty investors which invest exclusively in the New
Zealand ki fruit sector.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah, but you took a pasting it with Gaybrie, didn't you.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yes, we have orchards in Gisbone and so twenty twenty
three was a pretty tough year. But yeah, look thankfully,
and it's a big, big indication of the strength of
the industry as to how well things have bounced back.
The industry had a really tough couple of years across
twenty two and twenty three. Twenty four was a very

(00:43):
good year and twenty twenty five was record harvests across
most parts of the industry.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Is that I'm assuming this new development of Kiwi fruit
orchards in the Bay of plenty what would it cost me.
I've got to buy the land, I've got a plant,
I've got to put all the posts in and then
I've got to buy a license as well.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
So the first thing is the amount of development is
pretty well controlled by ZESPRE and that's because to grow
sun gold kiwi fruit you have to own sun gold
license and ZESBRE only issue a little bit of license
each year. This year they released four hundred hectares in
the context of there's about nine thousand sun gold hectares
across New Zealand, and so about half of that tends

(01:25):
to go to new development and the other half tends
to go towards converting over from green. What it costs
you to develop an orchard very much therefore, depends on
what license costs you. To give you an example, this
year license went for about six hundred grand.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Last year you're testing, and we're talking six hundred grand
per hectare hectare.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yep last year. Last year was in the mid fives,
and the year before that was four hundred, and then
the year before that was eight hundred. So it really
does bounce a lot, bounce around a lot. It sort
of depends on what's happening in the sector and interest rates.
But big picture, licenses about half a million bucks per
hector you and pretty much it will cost you close

(02:08):
to another half a million bucks to buy the land,
build the orchard, by the plants, get them planted.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Okay, well, let's look to the future of Kiwi fruit.
You've effectively well, when I say you've finished a season,
you're starting to think about the next season, aren't you.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, So harvest goes from about March through to early June.
Zesprey then spends the next six to seven months selling
that fruit. So at the moment Zesbrey is halfway through
selling the twenty twenty five harvest and have come out
with some pretty good forecasts on that. And at the
moment all around the country orchards have been pruned and

(02:44):
they're getting high caned at the moment, and from about
September the vines will wake up, we'll have bud break,
and we'll start to get our first indications as to
what next year's crop could look like. So you're always
sort of straddling a couple of seasons where your crop
from last year as cash flowing your crop for next year,
and you're not quite sure what you've made for quite
a bit of time. But in general things are looking

(03:07):
very good.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
I was into Pocky over the weekend. What a fantastic
place it is. Is it going to get too warm
to grow kiwi fruit there in the future with climate change?

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Wow? Look how long is a piece of strength. Things
are certainly getting warmer and we need a certain amount
of winter chill to grow kiwi fruit. What I would
say on that is, while things are getting warmer, twenty
twenty five been the edge has been was pretty much
a record for every variety in the history of kiwi fruit.

(03:39):
So it's one of the factors.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
It is a bit of a superfood. We've even heard
that kiwi fruit green. Is it making a comeback? It's
good for your gut.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, Look, all varieties appear to be going really well.
We're pretty blessed in this industry that generally the demand
side is quite good to the challenges for the industry,
particularly in the last few years have been on shore
and call it supply chain. When we have when we
have half decent weather and when we have a really

(04:10):
really available supply of labor, generally growers don't have concerns
around their fruit being sold. And in this year that
the green forecasts are looking fantastic by any metric.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Really Okay, Tom Jones, I really appreciate you taking time
to wander into our studio and Teonga here. I know
you've got a power packed afternoons of corporate meetings or
is it golf for you this afternoon?

Speaker 2 (04:34):
No golf. Thanks for having me, Thanks for coming in.