Margin reduction follows strong performance with three-year average EBIT exceeding 1.2 percent of revenue, triggering automatic adjustment to benefit producers
Kiwifruit growers in New Zealand stand to earn even more from their fruit exports in 2025/26, after marketer Zespri revealed it had reduced its own margin by a quarter per cent.
“Zespri’s fruit return margin percentage under the enduring funding agreement is designed to ensure that we can continue to support the New Zealand sales season,” the group’s head of commercial finance, Carl Cooper, explained.
“It has also helped to deliver increased value to growers with 71.8 percent of pool revenue returned via total fruit and service payments, a four-year high.”
According to the group, the three-year average EBIT derived from sales of New Zealand-grown kiwifruit has now exceeded 1.2 percent of that revenue.
As a result, the company’s return margin is automatically reduced, by 0.25 per cent to 7 per cent, for the new season.
“This is expected to result in increased value being returned to growers through total fruit and service payments in 2025/26,” Cooper added, “estimated to be between an additional NZ$7mn and NZ$8mn based on the May official supply estimate.”
