New Zealand is one of the only countries in the world that has a major horticultural industry and is free of economically important fruit fly, such as Queensland Fruit Fly. This freedom provides significant advantages to our growers and is something that New Zealand works hard to maintain.

To help inform the kiwifruit industry on the likely sequence of events should a fruit fly be found in a production region, and thus to allow for better business continuity and contingency planning, KVH and Zespri have been visiting post-harvest companies running a fruit fly simulation.

To date, all fruit fly incursions in New Zealand have occurred in urban areas, making it tricky for us as an industry to plan for a potential response in a production region, such as in the Bay of Plenty.

The purpose of the simulations is to stimulate conversation to help identify knowledge gaps for the overall response to a fruit fly find to better inform business continuity and contingency planning. The exercises also ensure that going forward, post-harvest companies have procedures in place and capability for managing possible restrictions on fruit movements associated with a response.

We have run these simulations with EastPack, Apata, OPAC, MPAC, Trevelyan’s, Humes, Birchwood and DMS, with Punchbowl remaining. They have been a great opportunity to carry out simulated scenarios involving a range of people and have allowed for connections both within and between organisations that will mean better fruit fly preparedness across the kiwifruit industry.

KVH has also developed a helpful new guide for growers, detailing the likely sequence of events if a fruit fly response was to occur in a kiwifruit growing region. Read more about the guide here.