Apple ban not totally lifted by Aussies

By Les Watkins

Apples from New Zealand are still forbidden fruit for many Aussies – despite their importation getting the thumbs-up from Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
A 90-year ban on apples from this country being exported across the Tasman was lifted on August 17, with Gillard’s approval, following a ruling by the World Trade Organisation.
The first consignments were then sent and Napier apple-growing brothers, Ross and Brue Beaton, reported that Sydneysiders loved the crunchy Pacific rose varieties they were giving as free tasters outside the city’s Opera House.
Horticulture New Zealand president Andrew Fenton says he is absolutely thrilled to see New Zealand apples being eaten in Australia.
“We want to congratulate Pipfruit New Zealand and all apple growers for their determination and patience. 
“This is a goal that has looked at times to be almost impossible to score, and they’ve finally done it. We are delighted for them,” he says.
But opposition to the importing of apples was fierce and a campaign against the lifting of the ban had already been spearheaded by the grower body Apple and Pear Australia.
Aussie politicians joined the battle and early in July John Cobb MP announced he was planning a private member’s bill which could prevent NZ apples reaching his country’s supermarkets.
Pipfruit New Zealand spokesman Peter Beavan denounced this as a bid to build trade barriers.
“We have a scientific process which has been proven and [has] supported New Zealand’s case for the past ten years,” he said. “Now the Australians are continuing to try and run political interference.”
While the Beaton brothers were winning new friends with their free apples, the two main supermarket chains, Coles and Woolworths, said they could not sell NZ apples.
Within days of the ban being lifted the South Australian supermarket chain Foodland also announced it would not stock NZ apples. Spokesman Russell Markham said this decision had been made to support the local apple-growing industry.
Australian growers are now demanding tougher inspection rules after some leaf matter and a dead insect were found in a consignment destined for export.
Australia’s Quarantine Inspection Service confirmed a shipment had been rejected and Apple and Pear Australia described the failed inspection as “extremely disturbing”.
The chief executive of the Apple and Pear Growers Association of South Australia, Greg Crammond, says the possibility of this type of material being in packing boxes poses a great risk of fire blight being transmitted.
But Pete Beavan of Pipfruit New Zealand is confident protocols are working and that there is no risk to Australia.
A recent survey of 1,000 Australian shoppers by Pipfruit, showed that 46 per cent believed NZ apples had always been available to them.

Slippery future for potentially lucrative export

By Les Watkins

Two mothers had offspring within minutes of each other for the first and only time in their lives. One was 15 years old and the other was nearly 100.
That age gap was not the only remarkable feature of this double event. Neither mother, nor any of the others around them, produced just twins or triplets – not even dozens or scores of little ones. Each had at least two million and possibly as many as five million.
Those astronomic figures confirm that, thanks to Kiwi ingenuity, our exports could have a multi-million-dollar annual boost. But one of the country’s most renowned experts warns that lack of financial support from the Government could result in the benefits going instead to China.
The mothers are New Zealand longfin eels which can grow to 1.6 metres and weigh up to 40kg. The babies, known as glass eels, are worth a fortune on the international market, particularly in Japan where, after being farmed and grown for six months, they are considered a great delicacy.
Top eel authority Dr Paul Decker, director of a specialist research unit at Warkworth’s Mahurangi Technical Institute, says that eels worth $3 billion are eaten worldwide each year and that NZ’s export figure is about $8 million.
That export income could eventually soar to billions, he says, if funding were available for his team to expand its successful research – with NZ then being able to sell vast quantities of glass eels to ready worldwide markets.
“But it is now starting to seem that this benefit will be lost to New Zealand – going instead to China,” he says.
Achievements at Warkworth, which have brought would-be investors from China, include the ability to fertilise and hatch virtually all the two million or so eggs produced by a female and keep the babies alive for up to 12 days. That is the age at which they develop a mouth.
“Eels are born without mouths or eyes, and initially they feed off their yolk sacs,” says Dr Decker. “Our next task is getting them to feed.”
Another aspect of the problem is explained by NIWA principal scientist Dr Don Jellyman, another world-acclaimed authority, who has studied eels for 40 years.
“The food that then is given to them is the powdered egg case of a shark and long term that is not a sustainable source of nourishment,” he says. “We have to find something more readily available to wean them on to a different diet.”
“Getting nearly all the babies to this 12-day stage – after managing to hatch them at any time rather than being restricted to the limited natural season – is something no-one else has managed,” says Dr Decker.
“But, the additional research needed to get to the next stage, growing them until they’re big enough to be sold for farming, is extremely expensive and our project at Warkworth is entirely privately funded.
“Government research agencies describe the project as ‘worthy of funding’ but say that they do not have any budget for such funding.
“A Chinese delegation has now asked if we will let them fund the project through to completion. The fish-hook is that they want us to move the work to mainland China.
“That would be bad because, with the world’s eel population seriously declining, growing glass eels to the stage where they could be exported for farming overseas would have enormous export potential for New Zealand.”
At present eel meat is being exported from NZ at about $12 a kilo. But the price for a kilo of glass eels hatched in captivity – with about 5000 in a kilo – would be about $2,000.
“And the international market is going to get better and better for sellers,” says Dr Decker. “The number of wild eels is tumbling globally because of factors such as pollution and sprays, as well as dams and other obstacles which make it difficult for them to travel to their spawning areas.
“We’ve ripped out their habitat something fierce. We allow dairy cows to graze on river banks and councils spray the willows around those banks – destroying the root systems where the eels live –and what do we replace them with? Nothing! That’s what. So there’s a bleak future for wild eels.
“In Europe they’ve lost 95 per cent of the eel population in the past 20 years and I foresee the time when none will come from there.
“Many countries which have been exploited are cracking down because of this problem and so, because of our work at Warkworth, New Zealand could be a big player worldwide in the provision of captive-bred eels for overseas farmers.
“It would be rather like a global chicken market – with us exporting the young for others to farm and develop. And that would be very lucrative indeed. So we’re desperately hoping that we can keep this as a business for New Zealand.”

Longfin eels take about five months to swim the 5000km from NZ to their spawning grounds around the Pacific Islands.
Females mostly live twice as long as males and make this journey at almost any stage between the ages of 15 and their maximum of about 100 years. After laying one mammoth batch they die.
Small longfins feed on worms, water snails and insect larvae. They later feed on fish, fresh water crayfish and small birds such as ducklings.

The push for value added exports gets underway

By Les Watkins

The food and beverage sectors begin an earnest attack on a target of $160 billion worth of processed food exports by 2025.
Plans to dramatically increase the level of New Zealand’s food and beverage exports – which already account for more than half the country’s trade earnings – are being made by industry experts with multi-million support from the government.
The goal is a jump of 270 percent to an annual total of $159 billion by 2025.
A landmark step towards achieving that target came this month when the long-awaited FoodBowl, run by New Zealand Food Innovation (Auckland) Ltd (NZFIA), became operational at its purpose-built facility near Auckland International Airport.
The Foodbowl is a key feature of NZFIN, a nation-wide open-access network of innovation centres, designed to provide comprehensive food science and technology resources.
This pioneering facility is the second recent major advance benefitting the food industry.
The other is New Zealand’s first state-of-the-art UHT aseptic PET bottling plant at Whakatu Industrial Park near Hastings, which was opened by Prime Minister John Key in September.
In addition to ensuring that bottled milk and juice products are shelf stable without refrigeration for up to 12 months, this plant will be the first in the world to produce UHT liquid infant formula in a patented teat cap PET bottle.
The value of the FoodBowl to the New Zealand economy was stressed by board chairman Tony Nowell in an earlier exclusive interview with FOODtechnology.
 He explained that the centre will provide experts to advise on a great spectrum of matters – including packaging, marketing and finance – in addition to those concerning production techniques and advances.
“Of the 1,840 food manufacturing companies in New Zealand, 55 percent employ more than five but less than 100 people,” he said.
“As a result, these companies often don’t have the infrastructure or expertise to accelerate product development, develop foreign markets and maintain an in-market presence.
“At the moment, if a New Zealand manufacturer wants to try a new idea, ordinary production must be halted – which is costly – or capacity hired in pilot facilities overseas.”
Now that can be done at far less expense at the FoodBowl which was built and equipped at a cost of $16 million – with the government contributing $9.4 million and Auckland City Council providing $2.5 million.
“So the resources of the FoodBowl will overcome a critical deficiency in New Zealand’s new product development process – the ability to upscale sophisticated new products from laboratory to commercial production – and will fill the gap between the idea stage and getting successful production on market shelves,” says Mr Nowell.
“It will also help manage the risks of innovation by minimising capital and expertise investment until products and markets are proven.”
Eventually there will be four innovation centres in the nation-wide network.
Those at Palmerston North and Canterbury were the first to start operating and the Waikato one is scheduled to open mid-2012.
Each will have a distinctive focus.
Palmerston North draws on the expertise of 600 scientists and technologists including specialists at Massey University, Riddet Institute, AgResearch, Plant and Food Research and Fonterra Innovation.
Canterbury concentrates on the particular needs of the South Island and helps with overseas marketing as well as production.
Waikato will specialise in dairy. This is immensely important as New Zealand’s annual dairy exports now top $12 billion – and there are opportunities for major expansion.
This importance is reflected in the fact that Waiktao Innovation Park’s parent company, Innovation Waikato, has formed a subsidiary – NZ Food Innovation Waikato.
This subsidiary will own and operate the NZ dairy industry’s first independent product-development spray dryer. It will have the capacity to deal with half a tonne an hour and will be suitable for manufacturing fruit and vegetable powders as well as whole milk powders.
Former government food safety auditor Neil McGarva is the managing director of Etika Dairies NZ Ltd which owns the new UHT aseptic PET bottling line opened by John Key.
He says its cold-filling technology allows for the use of lightweight bottles which cuts energy consumption as well as reducing the amount of material used and, more importantly, the method results in fresher food without the need for preservatives.
Mr McGarva adds: “We are delighted that even before we opened most of our initial capacity had been pre-allocated and plans are already afoot for a second line which will see capacity increased from 6,000 to 30,00 bottles per hour.”