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Turners and Growers, the New Zealand fresh produce group owned by German company BayWa, has said that it expects to turn in a full-year loss for 2012 that is roughly in line with the previous 12 months.

In a statement, the company said that it forecast a full-year, post-tax loss of NZ$16m-NZ$19m (€10m-€12m), similar to its 2011 loss of NZ$18.9m.

The result reflects the writedown of its apple, kiwifruit and lemon orchards, the group said, although CEO Geoff Hipkins noted that said it was too early to quantify these writedowns with assets still being valued.

'Taking all that together we're anticipating we'll have to make a reasonable writedown, but the positive is it doesn't affect the cash operating position of the company, which is still pretty good,' Hipkins explained. 'Even though the domestic market is under a fair bit of pressure, we've certainly had a very good year particularly as far as our apple exports are concerned. Prices have been strong in all of our offshore markets.'