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Speaker 1: Can we throuit. Exports are the highest they've ever been,

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Speaker 1: hitting three point one billion dollars for the year to

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Speaker 1: the end of August. It's an increase of twenty percent,

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Speaker 1: as I was telling you earlier year on year, and

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Speaker 1: it's driven by the gold variety. Michael Fox is zespri's

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Speaker 1: head of global public affairs and with us Michael.

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Speaker 2: Hello, gy here, how are you very well?

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Speaker 1: Thank you? Guys must be absolutely thrilled with us.

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Speaker 2: We are, and it's really great to see grohlers have

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Speaker 2: their tails up. Just the largest ever crop up about

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Speaker 2: forty five percent on last year, outseending fruit quality in

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Speaker 2: the markets performing really well. So it's good to see growls.

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Speaker 2: So confidence.

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Speaker 1: Why are people loving the gold at the moment? Or rather,

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Speaker 1: who is loving the gold?

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Speaker 2: Well? This we export more than fifty markets around the

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Speaker 2: world and gold is certainly a real growth category. But

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Speaker 2: green's also performing really strongly as well, and also having

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Speaker 2: a really good season in the market.

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Speaker 1: Is anybody in particular in the world who's who's into it?

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Speaker 1: Just everybody?

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Speaker 2: Oh? I think, well, I think lots of people and

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Speaker 2: hopefully more to come. But certainly China is a large

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Speaker 2: market and what we do say is is that you know,

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Speaker 2: the sweener tasting fruit is more suited to the Asian

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Speaker 2: powder than the Asian countries. Genuinely do love sun gold,

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Speaker 2: but we also see really strong growth. Our growth and

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Speaker 2: the likes of the yuiss is a really strong growth

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Speaker 2: market for US as well as as well as Europe.

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Speaker 1: And how's the red coming along?

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Speaker 2: It's coming along? Well, yes, that's Onny sort of two

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Speaker 2: or three years into commercialization and still small volumes, but

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Speaker 2: it generates a huge amount of excitement and market people

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Speaker 2: are really excited about that red color and the taste

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Speaker 2: of it, and we're really confident in that category as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the thing about it is because I

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Speaker 1: haven't actually tried a red Michael, so you've got to

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Speaker 1: tell me about this. The thing that I get excited

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Speaker 1: about is the color as well. What's the taste like?

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Speaker 2: It depends on who you ask. I've heard guava, I've

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Speaker 2: heard berries. I've heard a mix of sun gold and berries.

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Speaker 2: So the beauty is in the beholder a little bit.

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Speaker 2: But it does taste good. It's different to green and gold,

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Speaker 2: and that's kind of what we do as we as

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Speaker 2: we are looking for new varieties to bring new consumers

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Speaker 2: to the category. But like I said, it is pretty

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Speaker 2: extraordinary how it excited people get about the red piece

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Speaker 2: of fruit and it gives us real confidence.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty weird that it tastes like wava Hey, okay,

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Speaker 1: like weird in a good way. Weird in a good way.

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Speaker 1: I don't want to be disparaging of the thing. It

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Speaker 1: sounds awesome.

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Speaker 2: How we livid?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, how are you feeling after all of the stuff

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Speaker 1: that you guys have been through?

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Speaker 2: Are you?

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Speaker 1: Are you through it? The stuff with the bad crops

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Speaker 1: and the mishandling and the mice and all that stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point you MAKEE. So it has

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Speaker 2: been a couple of tough years if you go back

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Speaker 2: to COVID and the labor shortage, and that drove real

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Speaker 2: significant fruit quality issues and that took a lot of

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Speaker 2: value out of the industry. Last year we were down

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Speaker 2: about twenty percent on where we thought we'd be, and

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Speaker 2: that was just a range of sort of bad weather events.

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Speaker 2: But I think, you know, you talk to a lot

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Speaker 2: of people who have been around the industry for a

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Speaker 2: long time, and while it's you know, while it's it's

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Speaker 2: you know, they're still rebuilding and they're still challenges. You know,

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Speaker 2: the outlok from grows is a lot more optim the

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Speaker 2: stium it's been and I think this year the spring,

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Speaker 2: you know, the orchard are looking great, the weather is great.

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Speaker 2: So that's very early days in Touchwood, but hopefully that

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Speaker 2: confidence continues.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff, Michael, thank you, appreciate your time, and best

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Speaker 1: of luck with the season. That's Michael Fox, who's zizbriezehead

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Speaker 1: of Global public Affairs.

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