It’s official! The 2024 kiwifruit harvest is New Zealand’s largest ever crop with a record 193 million trays submitted, according to New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc. On average, each tray has around 30 pieces of kiwifruit.
The record crop is partially attributable to ideal weather prior and during the harvest on many orchards, as well as sufficient labour supply.
The 2024 crop comes in stark contrast to 2023’s low yield, which was due to poor pollination, wind, flooding, hail and cyclones, which reduced the crop size. Only 133 million trays were exported last year.
Growers will now be carefully watching the large volume of this years’ kiwifruit as the trays head to overseas markets over the coming months, to ensure that quality is upheld and good prices are achieved.
Despite gaining strong returns over the last two years, poor yield has hurt growers financially. The low orchard yields, combined with increasing orchard costs, meant that some growers were struggling to keep their businesses afloat.
New Zealand kiwifruit supply is forecast to increase to 208 million trays by 2028.
