New Zealand
Report Team Narrative
The effects of inclement weather on Australia’s blueberry crop were to New Zealand’s benefit in 2021-22 with exporters achieving astronomical prices in the market of their neighbouring country to fill the supply gap, particularly during New Zealand’s peak volume period of February to May.
With Australia representing more than 96% of exports, the impacts of the windfall were significant at a time of double-digit volume growth, rising input costs, and ongoing labor shortages exacerbated by the country’s protracted border closures that are only expected to start lifting to the industry’s traditional working holiday visa base just prior to the publication of this report. In response to the challenge – which has also impacted New Zealand’s much larger kiwifruit, apple and avocado sectors – blueberry growers have explored new ways to find pickers within their own communities, including recruiting retirees and introducing more flexible working arrangements to attract mothers, for example.
New Zealand is now approaching a 52-week supply scenario for its blueberry industry (although with a dip in June-July) thanks in part to a concentration of growth in the northern parts of the country’s North Island where fruit can be produced earlier. There used to be a peak in the Southern Hemisphere summer but that has flattened out quite a lot in recent years with southern highbush varieties planted to capture the August-September-October window and Rabbiteyes to capture the March-April-May shoulder period. For many growing regions harvesting lasts until the first frosts of the spring or winter, which can be either in May or June. In the South Island conditions are more similar to North America’s Pacific Northwest albeit with reduced temperature extremes, so varieties suited to Oregon, Washington State and British Columbia tend to be selected for that part of New Zealand
While Rabbiteye volumes are dismissed as outdated by much of the global industry, those New Zealand producers who grow locally developed varieties it insist the fruit has appealing flavor characteristics that are well received by the market. A Crown Research Institute (CRI), which has achieved great success globally in developing cultivars of other fruits that have become some of the biggest brands in the fruit industry, bred three Rabbiteye blueberries for New Zealand’s climate that have proven popular domestically and have witnessed incipient interest from growers abroad. This breeding programme is very small by international standards but has resourced up in recent years.
Much of New Zealand’s growth can also be attributed to relatively new hectarage dedicated to more premium market-oriented southern highbush varieties produced under tunnels, with plenty of adoption of varieties from one of Australia’s leading private breeders. Others from Australia and the United States are in the process of introducing new genetics to New Zealand, but the country’s strict phytosanitary rules for plant material make the process slow with delays that can last several years. There is still a high prevalence of public varieties in the cultivar mix.
The industry has historically exported half its volume, but given reports of high levels of growth the proportion was likely higher given the price incentives in Australia and emerging export markets in Southeast Asia, and the fact that domestic retail sales were up by approximately 10% even though the volume sold domestically rose by around 1.5%.
The most recent estimate for New Zealand’s blueberry consumption per capita is still fairly low at 900 grams annually, of which around 300 grams are for fresh blueberries. New Zealand imports almost as many frozen blueberries as it grows for the fresh market, prompting one grower to plant a sizable project by New Zealand standards in the country’s far south with northern highbush blueberries, oriented towards the frozen market with machine harvesting to reduce cost.