Latest / Best of Business / Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist on the recent boom in cherry exports

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Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist on the recent boom in cherry exports · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk ZEDB. Follow this
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  Speaker 1: and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio, Brian Bridge.
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  Speaker 2: They're very small, but very valuable to our fruit production
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  Speaker 2: export industry. I'm talking about cherries this evening. This season
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  Speaker 2: we exported five million kilos of cherries. That's up thirty
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  Speaker 2: three percent on last year. It's significant. Brad Olsen is
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  Speaker 2: the Emplemetric's principal economicsy is with me tonight, brag good evening,
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  Speaker 2: good evening. So cherries, cherries everywhere where are we sending them?
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  Speaker 3: Well, the bulk of the cherries that we're exporting are
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  Speaker 3: heading off to particular Asia. The likes of Taiwan was
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  Speaker 3: the biggest market, but Asia in general was taking well
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  Speaker 3: over ninety five percent of what we send out. That's
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  Speaker 3: usual and sort of not too much of a shift there,
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  Speaker 3: But what was interesting was where some of those other
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  Speaker 3: smaller countries, but we're taking some bigger cherry exports this year.
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  Speaker 3: In particular, the US are seeing quite a big increase
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  Speaker 3: relatively speaking on what they normally take, but also the
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  Speaker 3: Middle East normally taking just about no cherries, but this
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  Speaker 3: year a bit of a bulk up in the likes
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  Speaker 3: of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Those sort
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  Speaker 3: of areas, you know, do start to show that those
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  Speaker 3: trade deals that we've got going throughout the rest of
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  Speaker 3: the world are starting to work. There's a bit more
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  Speaker 3: profile for New Zealand exports to get out and about.
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  Speaker 2: What sort of money we're getting. Are we getting top dollar?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I would have thought so at the moment. I
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  Speaker 3: mean the fact that we were able to see cherry
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  Speaker 3: volumes go up thirty three percent to over five million
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  Speaker 3: kilograms and prices actually stayed at the high levels that
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  Speaker 3: they had been for the first time. Over the twelve
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  Speaker 3: months to February twenty twenty five, our cherry exports made
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  Speaker 3: US one hundred and twenty four million, first time it's
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  Speaker 3: made over one hundred mili. Now that doesn't sound like much,
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  Speaker 3: but these are some pretty high value products that we're
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  Speaker 3: able to send overseas. They're obviously quite seasonal, but it
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  Speaker 3: shows that when we can bulk up our exports by
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  Speaker 3: a third in a year and the price doesn't really change,
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  Speaker 3: in fact, it slightly goes up, there's some healthy demo
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  Speaker 3: for New Zealand fruit overseas.
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  Speaker 2: Does this I mean, when you start to see prices
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  Speaker 2: high like this, you see volumes starting to increase, you
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  Speaker 2: see new markets opening up, does that mean we will
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  Speaker 2: see more production or are we at peak cherry production here?
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  Speaker 2: What is the situation?
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  Speaker 3: I don't necessarily think we're at peak production, but I mean,
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  Speaker 3: of course it's a pretty big jump. You wouldn't be
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  Speaker 3: expecting to see the same thing again next year. This year,
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  Speaker 3: of course, seem to be better growing conditions a bit
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  Speaker 3: a bit later than usual, and of course there's always
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  Speaker 3: those worries around frosts and hail and similar so we
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  Speaker 3: can never sort of bank on it being great always
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  Speaker 3: production wise. But I think given the fact that we've
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  Speaker 3: got this continual focus on trying to grow exports, the
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  Speaker 3: fact that at the moment the numbers are sitting in
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  Speaker 3: a good position, there's clearly demand out there. Will continue
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  Speaker 3: to try and supply not only the likes of cherries
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  Speaker 3: and all of the other good stuff that we send
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  Speaker 3: out Kiwi fruits, apples and the like, but also be
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  Speaker 3: looking at where are there new opportunities to send different
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  Speaker 3: types of fruit. There's clear demand, so we should be
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  Speaker 3: making sure that we're on the.
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  Speaker 2: Table absolutely Brad, Thank you for that. Brad Arson in
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  Speaker 2: for Metric Principal Economist.
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