Onions miss the boat as horticulture exports struggle with shipping issues

Thursday, 18 March 2021

New Zealand exports about 85 per cent of its onion crop, some of which is not making it to the ship, its industry body says

Exporters are starting feel the impact of shipping problems, as vessels skip or stay shorter periods at ports, and empty containers remain unevenly spread throughout the country.

Over 50 containers of export onions, collectively worth about $600,000, missed their ship to Europe at Port of Tauranga last week, just as the onion export season hits its peak.

Onions New Zealand chief executive James Kuperus said the exporters concerned were hoping to catch the next ship in a week, but it was happening to growers every week.

‘’We’re trying to export to Spain and Germany right now, we’ve got a very short market window.

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''If you miss by a week you might also miss your customers’ requirements by a week as well … If things arrive a week or two late, it's very hard to convince the consumer to eat some more onions at a later date.''

James Kuperus of Onions New Zealand says exporters facing the peak of their season are very stressed.

With apples and kiwifruit also coming into peak harvest time, Kuperus said it was ''a very stressful time'' for exporters.

''For onions, it takes about eight months to grow and harvest them and it's heartbreaking when you get to this stage and you can't get them offshore to the markets.''

The cargo was being missed because some ships were racing to catch up on their schedules after delays and they were doing that by skipping ports or cutting short their visits.

New Zealand exports $150 million in onions a year, and 60 per cent of the crop is grown in Pukekohe which exports through Auckland, or Tauranga, which is taking Auckland’s overflow.

Exporters are scrambling to meet ships as arrival times become a case of ''first come, first served'’.

Meanwhile, in the Hawkes Bay, Manawatu and Canterbury, ‘’onions are in the packhouse ready to go’' but exporters were having difficulty finding empty containers, Kuperus said.

The apple export season is also in full flight. Murray Tait of fruit exporter Te Mata Exports in Havelock North said his company had not any cargo bypassed.

But the availability of empty containers was becoming a real issue, depending on the shipping line, and there were also logistical issues with ship arrivals.

Because of the disruption, ports around the country were no longer guaranteeing fixed berthing slots to vessels, and it was now a ‘'first come, first served’' basis, he said.

Exporters were trying to have their cargo at the terminal ready to go, but ports did not have unlimited storage and there were a limited number of plugs for ‘’reefer'’ refrigerated containers.

'’You have a situation where vessel arrivals at the port are changing sometimes twice a day. Planning for all that just becomes a nightmare,’’ Tait said.

The $2.3 billion kiwifruit industry has only just begun its export season and a Zespri spokesman said the company was ‘'well placed to mitigate risks’' because of its charter services.

Up until now the bigger problem for New Zealand has been importers finding space to bring goods into the country.

But the mismatch of containers to exporters’ needs internationally has been a concern for some time.

‘’Around the world there is a significant lack of empty containers because the flow, we call it an equipment imbalance, hasn’t worked between the ports,’’ Chris Edwards, president of Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Federation, said back in December.

He blamed the shipping lines for making decisions based on where they could get best value, sometimes preferring to sail ships full of empty containers rather than full ones to shorten turnaround times.

But My Therese Blank, Maersk's head of market for Oceania, said her shipping line was doing all it could to overcome the barriers it faced, which included 11-day waits still at Ports of Auckland.

She said traditionally New Zealand – which needed a lot of refrigerated or food grade containers – would be sent plenty of containers for the export season.

But this year had been complicated by industrial action in Australia, international disruption and the ongoing congestion in Auckland, where many containers have been left.

Maersk's new service, the Sirius Star, is currently making its way around the country, redistributing more than 3600 “empties,” although not all would be refrigerated, Blank said.

However, she said the shipping line's OC1 service would continue to skip Auckland for the foreseeable future to alleviate pressure.

Simon Beale, chairman of the Council of Cargo Owners, which represents the country’s major exporters, said bigger exporters would be fine but “everything’s very tight”.

Maersk and other shipping lines had sent ships into Auckland to try and get some containers out, but there was a long way to go.

“The container yards that were under pressure, they were well over 100 per cent full, they’re seeing a bit of light.”