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Speaker 1: Bryan Bridge.

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Speaker 2: They're very small but very valuable to our fruit production

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Speaker 2: export industry. I'm talking about cherries this evening. This season

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Speaker 2: we exported five million kilos of cherries. That's up thirty

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Speaker 2: three percent on last year. It's significant. Brad Olsen is

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Speaker 2: the Inmflemetric's principal economisis with me tonight, brag, good evening,

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Speaker 2: good evening. So cherries, cherries everywhere where are we sending them?

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Speaker 1: Well, the bulk of the cherries that we're exporting are

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Speaker 1: heading off to particular Asia. The likes of Taiwan was

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Speaker 1: the biggest market, but Asia in general was taking well

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Speaker 1: over ninety five percent of what we send out. That's

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Speaker 1: usual and sort of not too much of a shift there,

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Speaker 1: But what was interesting was where some of those other

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Speaker 1: smaller countries, but we're taking some bigger cherry exports this year.

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Speaker 1: In particular, the US are seeing quite a big increase

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Speaker 1: relatively speaking on what they normally take, but also the

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Speaker 1: Middle East normally taking just about no cherries, but this

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Speaker 1: year a bit of a bulk up in the likes

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Speaker 1: of the United Arab Emirates in Saudi Arabia, those sort

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Speaker 1: of areas you know, do start to show that those

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Speaker 1: trade deals that we've got going throughout the rest of

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Speaker 1: the world are starting to work. There's a bit more

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Speaker 1: profile for New Zealand exports to get out and about.

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Speaker 3: What sort of money we're getting. Are we getting top dollar?

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Speaker 1: Well, I would have thought so at the moment. I

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Speaker 1: mean the fact that we were able to see cherry

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Speaker 1: volumes go up thirty three percent to over five million

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Speaker 1: kilograms and prices actually stayed at the high levels that

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Speaker 1: they had been for the first time. Over the twelve

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Speaker 1: months to February twenty twenty five, our cherry exports made

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Speaker 1: US one hundred and twenty four million, first time it's

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Speaker 1: made over one hundred mili. Now that doesn't sound like much,

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Speaker 1: but these are some pretty high value products that we're

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Speaker 1: able to send overseas. They're obviously quite seasonal, but it

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Speaker 1: shows that when we can bulk up our exports by

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Speaker 1: a third and a year and the price doesn't really change,

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Speaker 1: in fact it slightly goes up, there's some healthy demand

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Speaker 1: for New Zealand fruit overseas.

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Speaker 3: Does this I mean when you start to see prices

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Speaker 3: highlight this, you see volumes starting to trees, you see

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Speaker 3: new markets opening up does that mean we will see

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Speaker 3: more production or are we at peak cherry production here?

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Speaker 3: What is the situation?

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Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think we're at peak production, but I mean,

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Speaker 1: of course it's a pretty big jump. You wouldn't be

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Speaker 1: expecting to see the same thing again next year. This year,

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Speaker 1: of course, seem to be better growing conditions a bit

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Speaker 1: a bit later than usual, and of course there's always

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Speaker 1: those worries around frosts and hail and similar so we

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Speaker 1: can never sort of bank on it being great always

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Speaker 1: production wise. But I think given the fact that we've

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Speaker 1: got this continual focus on trying to grow exports, the

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Speaker 1: fact that at the moment the numbers are sitting in

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Speaker 1: a good position, there's clearly demand out there. We'll continue

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Speaker 1: to try and supply not only the likes of cherries

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Speaker 1: and all of the other good stuff that we send

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Speaker 1: out Kiwi fruits, apples and the like, but also be

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Speaker 1: looking at where are there new opportunities to send different

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Speaker 1: types of fruit. There's clearly demand, so we should be

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Speaker 1: making sure that we're on the.

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Speaker 3: Table absolutely, Brad, Thank you for that. Brad Olson infor

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Speaker 3: metric principle Economists.

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Speaker 1: For more from Heathered Duplasy, Allen Drive.

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