Welcome, everybody. Sorry to hold you up. The advertised meeting time was 2:30 P.M. I'll now start the meeting. It's now 2:30 P.M. Welcome to everyone, and thank you for your attendance and obviously the interest that you show in your company, both here in the room and online. I'd now like to introduce you to Mr. Hori Ahomiro, who will open our meeting today with a karakia. Thank you. I should introduce myself. I'm Fred Hutchings, and I'm the chair of the company. For those of you online who need some help, it's 0800 200 220 is the number where you would get some assistance. Also, I should make sure, and I did hear one tinkling just then.
If you've got a cell phone in your pocket, either stand on it or turn it off. Thank you. If you hear a bell ringing, it's not me being saved by the bell. It will be a fire alarm. If you just in an orderly manner, take instruction from staff, head out, back out the way you came in and assemble over by, on the car park in front of the kiwifruit orchard there. Right, we have an agenda. Shortly I'll go through some introductions and do some formalities of the meeting. We'll make some introductory comments on the 2022 year and also some observations on the 2023 year as well.
I think we'll then have a much more detailed report from Michael on the various business units, health and safety, and the other various matters that we would normally cover in the chief executive's report. We'll have some formalities to deal with in terms of resolutions for the meeting to consider. We'll have questions, and then obviously, we do have a director retiring at the close of this meeting. If I could now start with introducing the board to you. Sorry, there are a couple of formalities. I jumped over those, but we should deal with them. The company's secretary has confirmed to me that notice of meeting be sent to all shareholders and all persons entitled to receive it, hence why you're here.
That there is in fact a quorum for the meeting. I've gone through the agenda, now I'm back on key. Now I'd like to introduce my fellow board members. Firstly, Cecilia Tarrant. Secondly, Hayden Cartwright. Robertata Cross. Stuart Moss. Ashley Waugh.
Afternoon.
Marty Brick and Robert Farron. As you would always expect, there are members of the executive team here, including Michael Franks, our Chief Executive Officer, over here sitting on the corner. Nicola Neilson, our Chief Financial Officer. Where's Nicola? She's down the back, monitoring questions for me. I'd also like to welcome Troy Florence from PwC, the company's auditor. To our team from the share registrars Link Market Services, who will be helping us with conducting the voting for and the formal business of the meeting and will also act as our scrutineer.
Finally, I'd like to welcome representatives from our banking syndicate, Westpac, ASB, BNZ, and Rabobank, and our lawyers, HHL and Mackenzie Elvin. Proxies have been appointed for the purposes of this meeting and in respect of approximately 7.2 million shares, representing 17% of the total number of shares. My fellow directors and I intend to vote all discretionary proxies we have received in favor of the resolutions as set out in the notice of meeting. Those online, you'll have a screen that looks like this in front of you. As with all normal annual meetings, anyone in the room or online will be able to ask questions and vote, and I encourage you to do so.
For those of you online, you can send through your questions at any time through the online portal by clicking the Ask a Question button, and I encourage you to do that early as possible, as it will allow us to answer those questions at the appropriate time of the meeting. You'll also be able to vote online using the Get a Voting Card button within the virtual meeting screen. So that's the formalities. I've introduced you to your board, dealt with the proxies, dealt with the meeting process. Now, let me make some high level introductory comments before Michael gets into a greater level of detail. 2022 has been a difficult year for a lot of people in the industry.
Some of this you will know, but for the purposes of this meeting, I will pick up on some of the, on the key methods that I think. I don't want this to sound like a list of excuses, but the reality is these are the facts. As I say, to many people, it's very easy to defend the facts. The kiwifruit yields were well down on expectations. At times during the season, we're up to 1,100 people short through a combination of sickness and simply not enough people in the market to fill the positions that we needed to fill. COVID-19 has just increased costs in all respects of the business. Costs that we would not normally incur in normal circumstances. COVID-19 disrupted the logistical transport network globally.
As a consequence of that, where we had planned to have our machine in KKP running at the beginning of the season last year, it wasn't commissioned until the very end. In fact, whilst I've been up to KKP several times recently to look at that machine, went up there this morning to see it operating, and what a stunning piece of kit it is, and it certainly helped our team with a very successful operational season so far. We've also experienced lower returns from the market. Largely down through fruit quality issues experienced in the market and higher costs as a consequence of fruit quality.
We've also had a higher fruit loss for our growers in the Opotiki region, and we're still working with our insurers to try and get us to a position so that we can help those growers with some additional compensation for their fruit. We have had higher revenues because we have grown the business up to NZD 348 million. Our EBITDA was at NZD 46.1 million. Our net profit before tax, NZD 7.6 million, and the NPAT of NZD 6.5 million. Despite having a tough season last year, we still did make a profit. Earnings per share was at NZD 0.16. Our net assets now running over NZD 0.5 billion. As you can well understand, there was no dividends paid in respect of the 2022 year, even though we did pay a dividend in February 2022.
Those of us that still understand interim and final dividend mechanisms, that was the final dividend for the 2021 year. By the Companies Act now, it's just considered a distribution, and we made a distribution in February 2022. We have a strategy of diversifying our presence within New Zealand, and that was largely now complete. We now have a presence and a greater presence than we've had previously in Opotiki, obviously Kerikeri and Gisborne. That gives us a total of 11 packhouses. One of the advantages, in my view, in respect to that, it gives us the flexibility when you are trying to manage huge volumes of maturity over a short period of time.
It gives us the flexibility to move fruit to pack houses to get that packed quickly and into cardboard and get it ready for shipping. Something that we can't ignore, and which we've spent a lot of time on and given considerable consideration to, is the sustainability of the business. Now, if there are still non-believers that the climate's changing, I think the last two seasons are a pretty good example of that. How is it changing? They call it global warming. I don't think it's, this really describes it. It's extreme weather events, whether it be hot or cold or wet or windy or frosty. It's bringing, certainly bringing change to how we understood climate. We've set targets of how we want to reduce our carbon footprint.
We've had them verified for the last three years for categories one and two. And obviously, We've actually published our first sustainability report in June of last year. That's all about being responsible, being transparent, and also getting ahead of the game in respect of what the regulators expect us to do, which they are in the process of finalizing listed company expectations on sustainability reporting as we speak. These are the high level numbers. Revenue is up 13% at NZD 384 million from NZD 309 million the previous year. Cost of Sales.
Not happy about that. A lot of it is not really within our control in some respects, where as I've already outlined, as the cost that COVID introduced into the system. They're up 19% from NZD 236 million to NZD 280 million. Gross profit down 7% from NZD 73 million to NZD 68 million. EBITDA also down NZD 56 million to NZD 47 million. Net profit down. There were some one-offs in 2021, largely the settlement from the Crown in respect of Psa, which was NZD 7.6 million, down from NZD 23.5 million to NZD 7.6 million. Net profit after tax, NZD 14.9 million down to NZD 6.5 million. This was, we shouldn't forget, even though it was a tough year, we did make a profit.
That all moves into, if you look at it at a share basis, earnings per share was NZD 0.16, down from NZD 0.43. Dividends paid in the year, NZD 0.25 relative to NZD 0.13. I've already explained that that gets measured at the time of distribution. Our net tangible assets sit at NZD 5 at the end of the year. It was at... That's the end of the year number at NZD 5.97. Our current share price, or was yesterday, was NZD 2.88. Net tangible assets, NZD 229 million up to NZD 251 million. This number of shares on held on hand, largely unchanged. It's just the maturity of the staff share scheme.
This is a higher level, high-level look at the net bank debt at the end of the year. We've... And our relativity in respect of that into, compared to the credit line that we do have. It's up from NZD 113 million to NZD 151 million at the end of December 2022. At that point, we held about NZD 6.3 million of assets for sale and were classified as current assets in our balance sheet at that time, and they've subsequently been converted into cash. As the 2022 year progressed, we proactively sought and obtained covenant amendment from our banking syndicate. With the help of hindsight , we needed, certainly needed support on one of those and not on the other.
On the EBITDA or the debt, net debt to EBITDA ratio, we did need support. On our interest cover support, we did not. Anyway, the banks were very supportive, and enabled us to, and change those for us in conjunction with management's excellent presentations to them on the company and its performance and agreed to those changes. There's a little bit of a forward... That last line on that page is a forward thinking, and I'll come more to that, in a couple of slides. We certainly are conscious that we need to reduce our debt, and that is the ratio we would like to get between 1.5 times EBIT to 2.5 times EBIT.
Can't have a presentation in today's environment without dealing with our environmental, social and governance matters. These are becoming the company's social license to operate, we take these seriously. As that slide says, we have an ambition to be a leader in this area and transparently report our environmental impact. For that reason, that is why we've had it verified. Our first report has been released, and that documented the initiatives that we're undertaking to reduce our carbon footprint. Our first ESG report also dealt with our social activities and the support we give our communities, and obviously outlines how the company's governed.
Our commitment is to reduce Seeka's carbon emissions by 30% by 2025, 50% by 2030 from our baseline year in 2019, and to be net carbon zero by 2050. That sort of lines up with the sort of the ambitions that that government and others have indicated that we should expect to target, too. Now obviously, we're constantly looking at how we can do this, and these, the initiatives that we're hoping and will work towards lowering those emissions is obviously using solar. We plan to have 1,000 kW up on the roofs of a pack house, principally two pack houses, Main Road and Kerikeri by the end of 2025, and increasing that to 30,000 kW by 2030.
Refrigerants is a large contributor to emissions, particularly when they escape. There's a lot of work being done to minimize that. Preventative maintenance to minimize leaks, to reduce the harmful impacts of refrigerants. Obviously, and also transiting our fleet from burning diesel and petrol to hybrid or electric vehicles. The final slide I've got here is on outlook. The company is in my view and the board's view, is well placed for the future. We have the capacity to handle the organic growth that is still occurring in the kiwifruit and coming through from our kiwifruit growers. That means we don't need to make large investments in capacity. We've put in a largely completed automation projects at 3 facilities.
The automation is not cheap and of course the other thing that automation requires is space. Whilst you say, "Well, let's automate some of our machinery," you've got to have the space available to actually be able to put the automation pieces of plant around the machines. You have to build additional space as well. In terms of labor, if we think we're well-placed, there's more RSEs and international workers in the marketplace, that so we don't feel we're gonna have the same labor problems going forward. The management team, the board has a lot of confidence in the skills and the skill set of our management team for us to be able to make, continually make operational improvements and enact them. That's.
If you take all those things together, we have a lot of confidence in terms of our ability to handle fruit going forward. However, we can all remember this this year, 2022 through and into early 2023. Late spring frost, significant impact, and we released yesterday. And it's still early days. We're not through the harvest yet. Based on the extent of the harvest that has already been processed, our expectation is that our volumes could be down by 20% on last year, on 2022. We've had Cyclone Gabrielle. Had devastating effects in the Hawke's Bay. Wiped out some of our growers' orchards in that region. We've had a lot. And we've had hail. For all those reasons, we're anticipating that our volumes could be down by 20%. Outlook for 2024.
One of the... In fact, I got up this morning and knowing that I'd have to dig into the back of my wardrobe and put a suit on for the first time for a while, which I only seem to wear to funerals these days, but. I thought, "My God, I don't wanna wear a dark suit tonight, today." I don't think it'll be reflective of some of the positivity that we can see for 2024. I did try to put a suit on with a bit more color, but I suspect most of you will think it's still drab. It's about the only one I've got left in the cupboard now, because I had to throw the others away because they don't fit anymore. If...
One of our risks is if we get a bump in volumes. Now could we get a bump? I don't know the answer to that. The growers who I talk to tell me, "Well, the fruit, the vines have had a bit of a holiday for two years. They might wanna come out after that holiday and perform a bit better." I know one thing, if there's another late frost, there's gonna be one hell of a lot of growers who are better prepared for it next year. Their water systems, their wind systems will be operating and will be able to be operated. That gives me some confidence. I'm being told the, there's strong canopy growth. There's more organic growth as well.
There's more ha coming into full production. That in itself should create some volume for us. When the volume is there, this company makes and generates cash. That will enable us to get our debt down to the ambition that we want to do. There is some confidence. However, as a board, we spent a long time yesterday discussing this issue. How should we respond? The response that we all agreed on is that we've got to get our debt down irrespective whether we've got some confidence in the yield turning up next year. We don't know. There's greater volatility. There's no doubt that there's greater volatility in terms of the growing of organic product.
That means we need to prepare and continue to reduce debt so that we can take another shock. If the shock doesn't arrive, we're in a strong position to take advantage of the opportunities. For that reason, we. There's an operational focus on excellence and to improve and reduce cost out of the system. That's not easy, because reducing costs is out of overhead, is easier than it is when it comes to people and expecting greater efficiency from our people and debt reduction. We can do debt reduction through minimizing our CapEx. As I said at the beginning, we've got the capacity that we need, so we don't need to spend beyond our depreciation charge. We can keep our CapEx around our depreciation charge and just spend money on maintenance and use.
Sell some of the assets maybe and to undertake and continue to take asset reviews and sell those that we consider we can sell and convert to cash and reduce our debt. How do I sum that page up? Got some confidence that 24 might be better. We're asking management to plan for the worst and put ourselves in a much stronger position in terms of our debt load. It looks I know it's a bit of a somber presentation. I hope I haven't sounded like I've been making excuses. I've been trying to give you an honest and transparent picture of what's happened and how we, how we feel about the future at the moment in terms of particularly around the volumes. It is about yield. Okay.
With those introductory remarks, I will ask Michael to come to the lectern and put some more flesh on the bones around the last year's performance.
Thanks, Fred. I am in a black suit, but in somewhat more of a positive frame of mind than my chairman. Kia ora koutou. My pleasure to present to you all again today and give you an insight to what's happened in your company and where the company is up to this year. Make sure I'm pushing the right button. As normal, for me, I would start with talking to you about people and safety. Last year we had one serious harm injury, which happened up at Orangewood, a new site. A person who was working on the machine to for repacking.
That's after the heat of the pressure of the season, when we are actually reworking fruit to get into shape before we load it out. We were using the machine. This person was pushing empty boxes under the machine transversely. His girlfriend on the other side of the machine was taking the fruit off the machine and putting it into the box. Contrary to operating procedure, he decided that he needed to have a chat to his girlfriend and wandered up to the machine, got his clothing caught in a sprocket. It pulled his arm into the drive, and it shattered his forearm. So a lot of retraining went on.
In the season that we had last year, with all the pressure we had, we only had 1 serious arm incident, and that was it. The person's made a full recovery, back at work. Of course, as Fred said, last year was very difficult to get labor. At one point, 1,100 people short. We hire around 4,500 seasonal workers, so 25% missing. Of course, that doesn't happen evenly across all sites or all parts of our operation. When the COVID waves were coming through, it was hitting one site or another site or another site. You know, 75% of the people would be missing rather than 25% typically. Yet, we still had to get the job done and get the crop through.
Thankfully, labor availability in the current season is a lot better. There's a lot more labor around. Of course, it's a lot more expensive. They are. They are humans, by the way. They are a lot more expensive. We have got some labor restrictions still in the regions. In Gisborne, in Aotearoa, and in Northland, typically, we're short. That's challenging for us. We also have the phenomena of what we would call in the business payday fade. Today is payday, 25% of our people will be missing, 'cause they got their money last night in their bank account and today they're spending it. That's just life. That's life in the modern age. We shouldn't grizzle about it. We're happier that we've got more people around and more people available.
Many of our sites, particularly here, in our central operations, we're fully personnel with enough people. Of course, labor costs have gone up. I don't need to talk to you about inflation. Labor costs have gone up. Of course, a lot of our labor is RSEs. We're now up to, I think, an approved number of 1,500 RSEs in the business. Two years ago, that was 440. We're up to 1,500 RSEs coming into the business in a 12-month period. They cost us a lot more than Kiwis. We have to pay them more. We have to pay them a higher rate than the New Zealand minimum rate. We have to guarantee them 30 hours a week wages every week that they're here. Whether they're working or not.
We are required only to put them into accredited, audited accommodation that cannot be in Te Puke or in Tauranga. It has to be in a rural area. We're only allowed to charge them a certain amount of money for the rent. That has to be approved by the labor inspectorate. We're not allowed to charge them transport from where they stay to where they work. With those restrictions and rules, it just gives you an insight to the overreach that we've got in the current regime that we have to comply with to have these people. We'd much prefer to have them than not. We've got them, you haven't got a CEO bleating to you or some excuses about the lack of labor availability.
We are building a new accommodation facility at Sharp Road. Because, you know, sometimes in the old days, we used to go to the countries, the RSE countries, and recruit these people and bring them to New Zealand and actually have a program. They are recruited for us by the country that is sending them. We don't typically have control of who's coming or when they might turn up. We've got to have better accommodation facilities. We are building one in Sharp Road for 140 beds. When that facility is built later this year, we will sell it and lease it back. It is non-core. It is our intention to build, sell, and lease that facility back. If you see us selling it later, that's what we're doing.
If any of you would like to buy it and lease it to us, you can talk to me after the meeting. Outside of that, one serious harm injury, we're reasonably relieved, really, having been under so much stress. People have forgotten how bad it was, how much stress the business was under last year. Our operational staff right across the business did a fantastic job alongside our contractors. Now, you know, it's a distant memory. People have forgotten how bad it was. You know, people like me weren't allowed in the shed for fear that we would infect other people as we walked around. In fact, if we're doing China supply, no external person was allowed in the shed. Another point to talk to you about is our risk management.
Something really is for the current year, 2023, rather than last year, but it's important to tell you about it. We have initiated a new mechanism to do our insurance. We have activated what's called a captive insurance company. It's called Seeka Risk Management Limited. It is based in the Cook Islands. For our material damage and business interruption insurance, that is placed with our own company. That company then goes and has got underwriters actually providing us with that cover. It is 100% insured by a number of underwriters, but it is through that business. We are effectively doing the job of the broker. 65% of the insurance company is from offshore reinsurers based in London. Insurance is going up. It is going up materially.
Our insurance has gone up, but has gone up by significantly less because we have pushed our insurance cover for our buildings, material damage, business interruption cover into the international market and away from the localized New Zealand book. Only 35% of our cover is now sourced from New Zealand reinsurers. Alongside that, we've got the normal fire risk mitigation plans that we've got going. Thermographic imaging across all switchboards, across all sites under load. We've got every month, insurance compliance and cool store compliance being registered with our insurance company. We've got gas, flood protection, which means it's a fire suppression system, increasingly in our switchboards and plant rooms. We've got heat detection systems and alarms. We've got 24-hour security on all sites. All packhouse sites are fenced.
We've got automatic alerts to Fire and Emergency New Zealand within our plant rooms and operational plants and automatic fire power cut-off if there is an event in any of our facilities. There is a huge amount of focus in the company around risk management, about physical risk, people risk, safety, plant safety, asset safety, and physical safety to our people and to those people who join or come onto our sites. That just tells you about some things you may not have known. Insurance is still going up. Our insurance bill is over NZD 6 million. For that part of the book, material damage and business interruption. Running into the operational parts of our business, I'm gonna give you more disclosure and more color about what's going on in these parts of our business.
This business is headed up by Barry Pennell, and that's his photo there. If you need to feel more handsome, you can find him after the meeting somewhere. This part of our business grows kiwifruit, avocados, and kiwiberries in New Zealand. Pretty much what we're doing. We build orchards. We've got long-term leases. We operate orchards for people by way of management. We lease orchards, and we've got long-term leases in place. We got NZD eighty and a half million in revenue. We had a lift in volumes overall because we've got more orchards in the books. But actually, the yields were down, and the yields were down predominantly because we had a late storm in December 2021, which impacted the yields, particularly in our Paengaroa growing region.
$4.6 million in EBITDA was down on the previous year by 13%, really reflecting lower returns from the market and higher costs onshore. It's costing growers more in New Zealand to grow. Labor costs have gone up, costs of fertilizer have gone up, chemical costs have gone up, compliance costs have gone up, it's important. A number of analysts have asked me and talked to me about the level of assets that you've got in this part of our business. Actually, in our analyst briefing pack, that number was $80 million, I think. That's gross assets. Our net assets in our orchard business is $40.2 million. In that $40.2 million net asset figure, about $20 million or just under is our investment in long-term leases.
I'll explain that to you in a minute. We've got $14.4 million, which is a work in progress, effectively growing next year's crop on those leases, which we recover from the revenues that those orchards produce. We've got about $5.8 million in orchard machinery. Tractors, vehicles, trucks, equipment division, really is what that's all about. Around 17 million trays in total was grown by this business in 2022, and you can see the numbers going up the slide. This presentation will be online shortly after this meeting. To give you a bit more color about the long-term leases, why do it? There's a number of reasons why we've done this. Firstly, and predominantly, what it does is it secures fruit supply to our post-harvest engine room, which is where we generate cash.
It's where we've got the bulk of our assets invested. It makes sure that in that hotel for fruit, that we're gonna get some fruit to occupy that hotel space. That's predominantly why we're doing it. It also happens to make money. In, you know, a little bit of an ambitious, perhaps, way to do things, perhaps a little bit scary to do it, but we're actually disclosing to you what our estimates look like going forward for this part of our business. Of course, some leases mature, some leases are coming on over that time. You know, we expect to have by 2027, 53 ha of fruit orchards in production for SunGold. We expect to have 40 ha in production of Hayward and 11 still in development or immature.
We expect this part of our business in 2027 to be delivering NZD 3 million in EBITDA or NZD 13 million over the five years. Most of those orchards are nearly or coming into, you can see in 2024, they start getting into production full time. A lot of those orchards are partnered with iwi, with the Kānoa fund, which is the Provincial Growth Fund, and landowners. We have some of them up in Raukokore up the coast, and has this added benefit of economic development that's going on through that investment. You're welcome. If you want to go and take a look at those orchards, you're welcome. We can actually have you hosted to take a look. Those developments must pack with Seeka until 2050, at least. Those orchards must pack with Seeka until 2050, at least.
You know, and our investment that we've made in those orchards is repaid just alongside the Crown's and iwi's investment. The money is repaid over time, and we also generate profits that we get out of those orchards. You know, I think what we're trying to do here is give you some insight that we have invested a little bit further than one year, and we are more than just running a hotel for fruit. We have 170 ha of long-term leases operating in 2023, 116 ha of kiwifruit, 41 ha of GEM and Hass avocados, 11 ha of mature lemons, and 2 ha of kiwiberry in development. Look, I would give you every disclaimer about those numbers. It's based on assumptions.
They're out beyond one year. It's our best estimate today of what we think those developments will do. It's giving you an insight as to why we've got NZD 40 million invested in our orcharding business. Half of it is in the future. Perhaps that might put some color into that part of our business. I was looking for someone to push the button, and it's me. Likewise, this is our post-harvest operations business. This is the big engine room of our company. You know, NZD 215 million in net assets, NZD 365 million of gross assets in this part of our business. Nice photo of Paul Kroon . Looks like he's been photoshopped. All good. Paul's here somewhere, I think. We might be hiding after that comment.
This business, in case you don't know, organizes the harvest of the fruit, the packing of it, which we're currently underway at the moment. It's cool storage, it's dispatching out to the market. Predominantly, most of the fruit here will be sent to Zespri. We'll give it a one-way trip to the wharf to put on one of their boats. We're also increasingly exporting avocados around the world, kiwiberries in our own case to Australia, and packing for third parties. We're doing a lot of contract packing for avocados, a lot of contract packing for citrus, a lot of contract packing for persimmons. Those businesses are pretty exciting really. And it's, you know, it's an increasing part of business for us.
In 2022, $233.8 million in revenue, up 19%. $59 million EBITDA was down 4%, which reflects the cost to do business in a COVID-type environment. We had some fruit damage. This is a toll processing business. We make money by handling fruit. If we don't handle fruit, we don't make a dollar. We don't make anything. We just have the fixed costs. You know, if we lose fruit volumes through disaster or climate or storm, or frost, then it impacts this business because haven't got fruit to toll process. We've got the capacity in this part of our business. I can see Paul now. We've got the capacity in this part of our business to handle somewhere between 50 and 55 million trays in a normal season.
The investment's largely there and largely made. I'd say to you that the $215 million in net assets, all of the asset values we've got in our books are at fair value. They have been audited. They've been through a valuation process at the end of last December. Rounding out the book, in terms of our operational part of our business, we have the SeekaFresh Retail Services Operations, headed up by Kate Bryant, a key person in our lead team. Wonderfully experienced, having spent 18 years at Zespri before she joined us about 8 years ago. This part of our business in SeekaFresh is really where we connect the market with fruit that doesn't go to Zespri.
Class Two fruit to Australia, kiwifruit, local market fruit, avocados, kiwifruit, exporting kiwiberries, and exporting avocados, which we've got programs going all around the place. Kiwiberries is a small category in our business, but exceptionally positive. Exceptionally positive. It is very profitable to those growers who have persevered with it, and it's been profitable that way for four or five years now. It's exciting, and they get all of their cash flow from their March-harvested fruit by the end of September. It's a quick turnaround turning fruit to cash. This part of our business also imports bananas, pineapple, papaya. It imports fruit from Australia if it's in short supply in New Zealand. We've got a growing business with category managers at Costco.
We've got great relationships with both of the major supermarket chains in New Zealand. Business, of course, in the 2022 year was impacted by lockdowns in Auckland and prolonged lockdowns. This business was impacted in terms of fruit flow and demand about how much, you know, we make money here by selling fruit. If the markets aren't operating, we've got nothing to sell. That's the key thing. Business has performed pretty positively since 2022. And, you know, is off to a rip roar so far in 2023. I did write there that, you know, it's significantly improved in 2023 and more normalized operations and a pretty good focus going on there. I'm happy and more satisfied with that number than what we were.
Of course, we go out to Australia. I'm gonna give you some more color about Australia in a minute. This is led by a wonderful Australian general manager called Jon van Popering . Hopefully, he's on the line. No jokes about him. They grow, pack, and retail kiwifruit, nashis, and European pears in Australia, alongside plums, and a new category called jujube dates. It's a fresh date, not a palm date, in case you need to know what that is. Very, very positive development. $1 million in EBITDA. They've been through the same issues that we've been through in New Zealand with lockdowns, cost increases, weather events. They've had the lot. They're resilient, those guys.
Alongside our mature orchards, we've also got 63 ha of kiwifruit in development, alongside new variety pears, which is, and new variety nashi varieties, which they're red, and our dates, which is the jujubes. We have just under AUD 20 million in net assets invested in Australia, reminding you that we, a few years ago, sold our mature kiwifruit orchards and leased them back. Booking a gain on that transaction when we did it. The AUD 19.8 million in net assets is made up of AUD 16.6 million of land and buildings, which is at fair value. They were valued in December. We've got AUD 11.6 million in the 63 ha under development of kiwifruit, predominantly. We own some watersheds over there, AUD 5.4 million worth.
We have some just normal plant and equipment, packing equipment over there, NZD 4.9 million. Likewise, putting some more flesh on the bone about your company, about what we're doing in Australia with Jon. NZD 11.6 million invested in orchards and development, predominantly is in kiwifruit. We have 93 ha in production now. In 2026, we expect that to be 155 ha in full production. Our nashis will increase from 46 ha to 73, with an increase with the red nashis. We'll be the only ones that have got those in Australia. We're expecting our EBITDA forecast, subject to all the disclaimers which were noted before in the previous board forecast for that long-term leases. We are expecting significant improvement in our financial performance in that part of the market.
That gives you some color about the investments that we've got in Australia and why we're doing it. The jujubes, I think I'll make just one more comment about. We've probably got a tiger by the tail. They grow in that part of the world with little water, about one-tenth of the water demand that a kiwifruit orchard would require for one hectare. They grow with little or no chemical intervention. There's no spray program. There's no fertilizers. They require little pruning. They yield within 12 months after planting. About 15%-20% of a normal year's production. In three years, they're at full production. They should do 20 ton a hectare. Current market price sort of fluctuates between NZD 10 and NZD 24 dollars a kilo.
Of course, how much the market can take as a fresh product. The beauty of jujubes is that you can also process them and sell them dry and make them a 12-month product as well with heavy Asian demand. That is a category that we are chasing a little bit. We are developing those orchards. We have sale and leaseback proposals already in place for them. We won't have our cash tied up for too long in that part of the world. What I've done to that date, to that point of my presentation, is just explain to you a little what's happened in the company. The operational breakdown, challenges we've been through, put some color about the investments we've made in the future with both the long-term leases and with Australia.
I've had some questions over the last 6 months since our analyst briefing call. The forward focus for us. Right now, we're mid-harvest. We're about 60% of the way through the Gold, and we're about 25%-30% of the way through the green, depending on the stats. It's been a little bit hard to pick exactly what the yields are doing because, you know, we've had some orchards that have been stressed, water stressed. We've had some orchards that have been got carrying unusually low yields, and so therefore maturing unevenly. We've got some orchards that have been hailed or frosted. When we start looking at the trends that are packed versus estimate, you have to put a wand over it, thinking, "Oh, well, is it just because it's the low orchards?
Is it just because it's the stressed orchards? Is it because it's the Gisborne orchards or not? It's been hard for us, and still is a little bit volatile in terms of us to work out exactly what the total volumes will be, other than to know that they're down. Of course, we knew or we expected the yields at altitude, mid-range to altitude orchards to be higher than what we've experienced in those stressed orchards that were to handle first. Of course, as life would give you these sort of events, we had a hail event. You know, right through that band where we didn't want it. We're working through those orchards at the moment, trying to work it out. Now we've focused the business on core business. We're focused on operational improvement and being excellent.
Team actually has put together a pretty complete season so far. They've done a great job, actually. It's a, it's a much more smoother harvest this year than last. It's not perfect, you know, on the, on the scale that we do things, perfection is just something we strive to achieve. We haven't had any safety incidents of any note. We've had a couple of near misses. We've had a couple of random events. We had some person who decided it was sensible to hop into the car of a person at 8:00 at night down at the lab when she was leaving the building. He demanded that she take him to the police station. I probably should suggest he get there on his own. You know, we've had a couple of those events.
We've had no injuries of any note. Our capacity is set in the business for 50 million trays. We don't need to put capacity improvement in place. We don't need to have capital capacity in the company for the next 12 months at least. We've At the beginning of this year, reduced our CapEx down to within depreciation. We might slightly poke above that. That's where we've actually put it at the moment. We are anticipating profitability improvement in 2024. We can see that the canopies in the orchards look pretty good, to be honest. The lower fruit yields actually have resulted in the natural reaction of the plant to have more vegetative growth.
Our orchard, our growers right across the region are far more frost aware and unlikely to be caught out by a frost event again. We still are subject to the vagrancies of the weather, I think. Last year was a very warm and mild winter. To remind you, it didn't snow at Ruapehu. The ski field never opened. That meant for us, when we had our bud break, the plants didn't have the allotted required amount of winter chill. Hayward, in particular, requires winter chill to go into senescence, to go to sleep if it's gonna pop out with its normal vigor. We didn't have that. Our bud break was very indifferent. You know, with the likelihood that we're heading back to El Niño, we'll be heading back to colder winters. That's the prediction.
Therefore, there are some positive signs on the horizon, in spite of my chairman getting out of bed, worrying about life in 2024. If the numbers come back in 2024, so will the profitability. We are focused on cost reduction. We have been bringing down the lid. We have been not replacing people as they leave. We have been juggling and moving the deck chairs around. We have been restructuring parts of our business in a sensible way, because the last thing that we can do as a company is if we go and go in too hard and actually make unnecessary changes, and then the volume comes back in 2024, we'll have a disaster. We're just sensible about what we're doing to make sure that we are, we're prudent.
Company has set a targeted debt to EBITDA ratio range of between 1.5 to 2.5 times. We debated that with the board yesterday. It's management's intention to get it down to the bottom end of that range as soon as possible, through organic manners, organic means. We are looking at targeting increased profits and lowering our CapEx. We don't need to spend beyond depreciation, because we've got the capacity in play at the moment. We are continuing to review non-core assets. We did sell some excess water in Australia, which settled this year. We've got a few orchard holdings that we are selling or have sold. We're just working through those at the moment.
As I outlined in the analyst briefing session earlier in the year, we have been thinking about looking at and contemplating whether it would be sensible for us to sell and lease back any of our assets and recycle that capital, either return to debt or return partially to debt and still have some money to have some financial freedom of action. That's what other opportunities being considered means. That being the case, the photo that you can see on that slide is actually of the new KP machine. We did have to struggle last year without it. This year it has turned on like clockwork. Jarrad Bates and the team down there done a fantastic job. It is handling 900-1,000 bins in a 24-hour period now.
It has been predominantly packing Gold. People who have gone there are very happy with it. It's earning its return on capital. We, you know, we're delighted with its performance, really. That's my presentation to you as shareholders. I'll be happy through the chairman to answer any questions that come my way later on in the presentation. Thank you.
Thank you, Michael. We're feeling much brighter now, so I am pleased I put my blue suit on. Right. We need to conduct the formal part of the meeting now, which involves three resolutions. They've all been outlined in the notice of meeting, and there will be an opportunity for shareholders to ask questions as each matter is put to the shareholders. For the sake of good order, shareholders' questions should be relate directly to the matter being considered. Now moving to the resolutions, and a poll will be held for each of those resolutions. Shareholders joining us here today, you've been given your voting card.
If you're a shareholder and did not register on arrival and wish to vote, please make your way to the registration desk back outside the door there if you haven't got it and the Link people will assist you. Please mark your card of your voting intention for each resolution. The voting cards will be collected at the conclusion of the meeting. Shareholders joining online are able to cast their vote using the electronic voting card received when you registered online and were validated. For those online, you just need to click on Get Voting Card. Of course, you, as you will all be aware, you can vote for or against or abstain.
Voting will stay open until fine, 5 minutes after the conclusion of the meeting, and Link Market Services will collate and act as the scrutineers, and the results of the vote will be announced via the NZX, sorry, as soon as we, as soon as they're made available. Each resolution, as set out on the notice of the meeting, will be considered as an ordinary resolution, which means that it will be approved by a simple majority of the votes cast by the shareholders entitled to vote and voting on the resolution. Of the outcome, I think we're gonna put back on the screen, the outcome of the proxy votes were displayed for your information. Let's move to Resolution 1. I now invite Cecilia Tarrant to address the meeting.
Tena koutou katoa. Thank you, Fred. I'm pleased to have the opportunity to speak to you today. This is the second time that I have stood for re-election. When I first joined the board in 2017, I had no background in the kiwifruit industry. After six years, I know a lot more than I did then, but I'm still learning and enjoying being part of this complex industry. As an independent director, not daily immersed in the industry, I believe I am able to make a valuable contribution, bringing a different perspective to the board table. Being a director is my profession, and I serve on a number of other boards, which provide me with a range of perspectives that enhance my contribution around the board table at Seeka.
In particular, being the Chair of New Zealand Green Investment Finance provides me with insights into the opportunities to finance climate change mitigation and into dealing with both the bureaucracy and politicians in Wellington. As Chancellor of Auckland University, which means I chair the council, the board of the university, I am provided perspectives on a range of issues faced by a large, complex business. When I was re-elected in 2020, I told you that sustainability would be a key focus for me in the next three years. This continues to be an important focus for me. I'm proud of the work that the company has done in the area of environmental sustainability, calculating its carbon footprint, setting goals to reduce emissions, and formulating plans to meet those goals. We are still early on this journey. Business resilience is an equally important part of sustainability.
Seeka operates in an industry where volatility is becoming increasingly the norm, whether due to weather conditions in New Zealand or overseas, selling conditions overseas, supply chain challenges, or availability of labor, to name just a few. My goal as part of the board is to make sure that Seeka is in a position to deal with volatility and thrive. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow directors and management for their support. Thank you for listening to me, and I hope you will vote for me.
Cecilia chairs our sustainability committee. In fact, we're one of the few public listed companies that actually has a sustainability committee of the board. I now propose the following resolution: to re-elect Cecilia Tarrant as a director. Are there any questions on this resolution? I haven't seen any questions from shareholders and attendants, and there's none from online. Thank you, Nicola. Thank you. I'll now move to resolution two. I now invite Hayden Cartwright to address the meeting.
Thank you, Fred. Kia ora. I'm Hayden Cartwright, kiwifruit grower from here in the Bay of Plenty. I returned to manage my family's kiwifruit orchard in 2020, following 20 years of following my engineering instincts. 17 years in the oil and gas industry, in the construction and operation of margin-driven LNG terminals, excuse me, and oil refineries, has given me transferable skills and knowledge very useful to the world of horticulture and to post-harvest. Combining this with the natural desire to get the most out of the land with innovative thinking is enabling me to love what I'm doing. In my profession, I spent countless hours poring over reports, budgets, plans
Testing them for cracks and looking for opportunities. I will use these skills and others that I've picked up along the way to complement the vast array of experience around the table so that we can guide this company back to the dividends it is used to delivering. The industry is obviously facing headwinds. I believe in this company to weather the storm and to deliver for its shareholders and its growers into the future. I'm a staunch supporter of the kiwifruit single desk, which is why, at times, I'm one of Zespri's biggest critics. If we don't ask questions and challenge, then we risk losing the benefits of this monopsony that has delivered since hearing of its construction around the dining table as a young fella. Seeka has delivered much to this industry, to its community, and to my family over the years.
I'm proud to stand here and say it's my time to offer my support in return. I trust that you, the shareholders, will give me this opportunity by voting for me today. Thank you.
Thank you, Hayden. One of the other advantages is that Hayden will probably halve the average age of the board. I now propose the following resolution. To elect Hayden Cartwright as a director. Are there any questions on this resolution? None from the room. Head shaking at the back. There are no questions. I'll now move to resolution three, the appointment and remuneration of our auditors. I now propose the following resolution: To record the reappointment of PwC, PricewaterhouseCoopers, as auditor of the company, and to authorize the directors to fix the remuneration and expenses of the auditor for the coming year.
Are there any questions on this resolution? None from the floor and none from online. Thank you. Oh, there is one.
Sorry. Excuse me.
The remuneration of the auditors. How do you do it? I'm curious as to know how do you fix the remuneration of the auditors.
Um.
It's on every resolution of every company I've ever seen, and nobody's ever given me an indication how they do it.
Thank you.
Whenever you buy any service from any service provider, they have to provide a budget, put a proposal for you, explain where the time that they will occur will go into the audit process. The management team will review that and come to a conclusion as to whether they think it's a reasonable fee for the work that they believe they need to do to undertake their role. Hope that helps you understand. You don't believe me? That is the process it goes through to help the directors authorize their remuneration. It's an interesting fact, isn't it? It's the only service that's provided that the directors authorize. It's done because it's...
The auditors are there for you as the shareholders. Sorry, I just saw another arm go up then.
Just following on from that, are there ever alternatives to PricewaterhouseCoopers considered?
That's a good question. Well, there's 2 things. There's one about overfamiliarity of the auditors with the process, and that is managed through audit partner rotation, which happens every five years. The audit partner is only does the audit for 5 years, not for 50, like they used to in the United States from time to time. Obviously, we as a company will go through a process and make sure that we're happy with the service and the quality of the service that we're receiving from the auditors.
If we're not happy, we will consider whether we may ask for tenders, put out an RFI, a request for information, on other firms that may be able to do our audit for us. We haven't had felt that we've needed to do that up till, up at this stage, but that's certainly something that's available to us, should we wish. Okay. In fact, we, you know, we can't just throw the auditors out. They are automatically reported on, reappointed under the Companies Act. As you'll see, we're not appointing the auditors here. All we're doing is asking, seeking your authority to pay them. In fact, the auditors...
If we go through, want to go through that process, there's an understanding in the profession, in the audit profession, that they would effectively retire, resign and leave a vacancy which the directors would then have the authority to fill. That's how the process would work, should you want to change it, should the directors feel we need to change auditors on behalf of the shareholders. Right. All right. I'm up to questions and general business. Happily open the floor to any questions if there are questions from the floor and from online. If you could just wait for a microphone so that all the people online are able to hear your question.
Similar type of question that's been asked about the auditors. Firstly, Michael has said that the engine room of Seeka is the post-harvesting processing of the kiwifruit, most of which comes from independent growers. My question is: how does Seeka go about working out the cost to the growers, which is related, of course, to the income of Seeka? Also, does this cost have any relationship at all to what the price of kiwifruit is fetching overseas?
Right. That sounds like an answer for the CEO, Michael. 'Cause conscious that they've recently been through their pricing for cost of processing kiwifruit.
It's not straightforward. We look at the crops that we think we're gonna handle in the coming year, and we look at our capacities. We go into the business, and we do a cost build to look at what pack types we think we're gonna pack, what labor is it gonna take us to do that job, what is the incremental cost or re-revenue that we'll get from Zespri 'cause they pay us away from when we pack away from a bulk. We work out what margin we need to make or wanna target making there actually to be profitable in that part of our business.
We overlay that with what we think the market's doing in terms of the local post-harvest market and what all the other operators are doing, and we're trying to get a read from our market intelligence about what's happening, what losses we've had, what gains we've got, what the market pricing is doing for kiwifruit. We largely will set the price. It bears no resemblance at all to what the growers might be getting in sales in the market, but it will bear resemblance to the investments that we've made in order to be able to put that capacity on. If you think about it, or you don't need to, but a lot of the investment and capacity were put in places for Gold. Gold comes on in a peak moment.
We're in there now, 16, 17, and 18 will be peak weeks for us, will be full noise. At that time, we're full. If we get more Gold, if we decide we will need more capacity, it's gonna take more investment. That investment is expensive. It's gotta pay back from that category. Hayward largely comes in afterwards, we're using the capacity that we've had previously. We're getting turnover through the stores. In that way, we actually aren't making new investments for Hayward, the margins for Hayward have been slightly less. We're looking at margins, cost builds, and pricing in the market predominantly to work out what we've got. Around 40% of the fruit that we handle as a company, we grow. We may not own it. It may be owned by...
We might do this through a management relationship rather than a lease. Around 40% of the fruit that we handle, our orchard managers have stewarded through to harvest. Just to correct that first comment, we are.
Thanks, Michael. Hope that helped to understand that. Also we shouldn't forget it. It is a competitive. The Post-harvest is the competitive part of the industry, isn't it? Any other questions?
Mr. Chair.
There's one coming down here. Roberta, I'll come to you.
Yes, I have a question. I look at the table in front of us here. I see an old-fashioned board. I just wonder about the gender, the diversity. Sorry, I'm not offending anybody. I just, Yeah. I just wondered what your identified gender composition of the board is. Do you intend to remain predominantly male on the board?
Well, the answer to that-
I will add that I would suggest that other boards in New Zealand are not focusing on that type of board. They're wanting more gender diversity.
We've tried very hard to change the gender diversity the last time I went for a direct search. Unfortunately, we didn't find any woman that really wanted to join the board. We interviewed a number, they didn't really have the skill set that we were looking for at the time. I have to say it's not without trying, and I still, and I still have the view it's the right person for the job with the right skill sets. If we can find those skill sets, with the that gives us the greater gender diversity than we've got at the moment, we'd be very pleased. That's not. We haven't ignored that issue. Ratahi, did you have a?
I just wanna take this moment to talk about the Zespri grower family, which is really important in respect to Cyclone Gabrielle. We're the largest kiwifruit grower in the Hawke's Bay, and we lost a considerable amount of our orchard down there. It was also a time when I nearly lost my life. Now, I wanna talk to you about that. I was at the gate locking the gate, and it was dry. Within one second, it was up to my chest in water. I turned around, and my truck was just ticking over. I got in my truck, and I was driving down the highway. Now, you've seen this on movies where you're driving down the highway, and behind you is a wall of water that's twice the height of your truck, and it's chasing you down the highway.
I get down to the end of the highway, trying to take out where I could escape, and then I watched the water come over the top of the bridge at Omahu, and it cut off my escape. I shot off towards Hastings Golf Club to try and get out there, and I watched the road float because the river had got under the road, and so there was no escape. That's how frightening it is to watch hundreds of people running along the road looking for somewhere to go. That kind of experience is probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience. What it brings me to is the Zespri family. Within hours of that happening, I was receiving hundreds of calls from the Zespri family of growers saying, "What can we do to help you?" That is...
That's one of the amazing things that we should recognize as a group of owners and as a group of growers here, that we do care about our family. I wanna say thank you to the growers here who actually made those calls to us and other growers in Hastings. We are suffering. It's still very difficult down there. It really makes you feel good to know that people care up here. That's important. It's been so good that it makes you really understand and value why you're a member of this company. It's those extra values that are important to us, especially us who are growers. For those who aren't growers, thank you for considering us as a family as well.
I just needed to say that because I won't get another chance to thank you. Thank you.
I was in the Hawke's Bay over Easter, and saw some of the destruction that comes from the power of water and logs, and it's, was quite humbling really and, scary if... I thought at the time, I thought it'd be very scary to have been anywhere near there. Is there any other questions? Yep, go for it.
Talking about capacity to process, you had a crop this year or a handling volume which was 42 million trays, which is 20% down. You tell us you've got a capacity to do 50 million plus. Really you're just on the limit there really, aren't you, to handle a normal year? What actually?
Yeah.
Are you gonna do if you do have a bump? Because, yeah.
Yeah.
You are in for an El Niño. Things are gonna be different.
We've got the opportunity of a number of pack houses, which obviously we can shift fruit. If the volumes are at that level, it means that we have less opportunity to take on fruit from people wanting to pack from us from other pack houses. We need to manage that process. Michael, is there anything further you'd like to add?
I don't need that story. I probably do down the line.
You do down the line, you do.
The 20% reduction that we talked about yesterday is on NZD 42 million, not to NZD 42 million. Just to make sure everyone understands, if there's a bump, it's growing from something below NZD 42 million up to something. The bump would take us to NZD 50 million, not beyond NZD 50 million. I think that's sensible.
20% down.
Correct.
That's right. Yeah.
No point in just letting that one slide by. Got to be open and honest. We've got the capacity in the business to do 50 million plus, and that would be the bump up. Our plans sort of see us being able to do that. In a normal yield, normal yielding year, we should go somewhere mid-40s and or plus, and that would put us sort of still with some buffer.
Thank you. Nikki, have you got some from online?
Yes, we do. First question is from Peter. He'd like to know if the company is looking to raise any additional share capital over the next 12 months.
We'd actually discussed that as a board yesterday, and that was something the board discounted 'cause we didn't think, given our share price, it was a good time to try and raise additional share capital. That's the short answer to that question.
A second question from Coralie van Kamp. She'd like a bit more color around the illegal Gold kiwifruit planting in China, and in particular, if any of the Zespri Red variety has been found in China?
Haven't heard anything about the last part of that question. Michael, I think you might even be struggling to put color on that question.
No.
in terms of what's happening in China.
Yeah, no, I can put color on that. There's about 10,000 ha, as we understand it, of Gold illegal plantings. Illegal. There's not legal, because it's not illegal. There's 10,000 ha of G3 plants in China that they are growing and cropping. They are slightly counter-cycled to us. We will have a smaller window, an earlier window for fruit sales there. Of course, fruit that comes from New Zealand and is exported anywhere in the world has that ring of quality that you've got with the Zespri brand, and the strict growing processes that we go through in food safety. In the case of red, there's been no reports of Zespri RubyRed growing anywhere else in the world.
I would remind you, and people in the room would know, there are red varieties growing in China that are not Ruby Red. It's not the Zespri variety. There are red varieties growing in China already. Not that particular variety.
Mm-hmm.
No further questions. Thank you.
No further questions. I'll ask the floor once more if there are any other questions. You've got yours.
Sorry to keep bugging you. The floods in Aussie, were you affected?
The short answer to that is yes. Michael, you could put some color on that too. You were over there recently.
Yes, the floods that we had in the Shepparton Goulburn Valley region did affect our orchards, and we did have some areas underwater. We've lost about 2 hectares of Hayward out of 100 ha and 63 in development, not a material area. The plants didn't like it, but we've only lost 2 ha. In the case of our pear orchards, our Nashi pear and European pear orchards, there was water in those orchards, but has caused no damage.
All right. If there's no other general business or questions, there's one final matter I need to do, and I need to offer Marty an apology because we had quite an intense board meeting yesterday. It due to my lack of ability to control things, it ran on longer than it should have. I completely forgot to thank Marty at the board meeting for his considerable contribution to Seeka, both as a director, a grower, and as a shareholder. Now I get the opportunity to do it now.
Marty, on behalf of Seeka, many thanks for your considerable contribution to the company, your wisdom and thoughts on the kiwifruit industry, and helped kept us online on many occasions. Thank you, Marty, from behalf of the company. At a personal level, I also would like to very much thank Marty for his patience and repeatingly helping me get a better understanding of the kiwifruit industry and how it handles kiwifruit. I personally have learned a lot from you, Marty. Thank you for your expertise and your friendship. I wonder if we could just all thank Marty in the normal way. Now, I understand Marty wanted to have the last say, but... Marty.
Thank you, Fred. If I had to say something, there's not much precedent for a ex-director stepping up here, but I'm still in the industry and still will be a big part of it. Actually, I just wrote a few notes here. The first, I'd like to thank all the shareholders and growers for supporting me for the last eight years. It's been a pleasure working on behalf of both growers and shareholders. It's not easy, and often there is conflict in those decision-makings, but I've tried to take a middle ground, and I guess I lean towards growers in a way, but also try and support shareholders. Also, I'd like to thank the board that I've worked with for over that time, all the way, and it's been fantastic, a great experience.
There's this good skill base there, and it's great to see the average age coming down a little bit. I was getting a bit nervous with myself there. I'm sure Hayden will contribute well. The other thing is I had people ask me why I why I'm stepping down, you know, for what reason. I had to think about it, well, it didn't take too long. When I first started in the industry, I bought the second electronic grader that was made by a chap, Hamish Kennedy, who used to stay at home when he was down here. Anyway, when he first said, "Marty," rang me up, "Do you wanna have this electronic grader?" I didn't even know what an electronic grader was.
I said, "Yeah, yeah, sounds good." Brings it down, sets it all up, and away we go. I think that outfit did about NZD 800,000 peaked by the time it finished. Then I look back, and when I started, the revenue for the industry was NZD 2.9 million, which I find difficult to think. There was NZD 2.9 million back in the 1970s, mid-1970s. Once I started looking back, I thought, "No." I look back at those as the cowboy days, really, and some of them here will know those days. They were good times. The industry's developed a long way from then. It's got a much stronger governance. You know, we see the KKP grader is quite extraordinary.
You know, looking at that from what I had in the late seventies is a huge change. To the benefit of the industry. Watching that, it was something else.
Thank you everyone. Yeah, I've enjoyed my time and, lastly, yesterday's meeting and Michael's sense of humor, I sort of got used to. He said to me, "Oh, you realize what the crop is?" I said, "Yeah, crop's down." Anyway, short of it was, he said, "Well, you realize how far it's down?" He's just done this and this. I said, "Come on, it's not April Fool's Day." In reality, we've come off 2 years of slippage in volume, and that's not easy at all. I mean, it's a very difficult thing to handle. Total confidence in both management who do a fantastic job, and the board to control that situation over the next 24 months.
It will require a lot of detailed work, I imagine by both parties, particularly the management structure of Seeka. Yeah, I'm looking forward to next. He's got a few holidays set up, so I'm looking forward to doing that. I have a son that's taken over the growing side of the business a bit, so looking forward to doing a few other things. Thank you very much for your time. Thanks, Marty, and thanks again for your outstanding contribution to the company. Well, I hope you've, before I close the meeting, got a sense. I suppose this is a business you have to have patience, because you're growing a product and it's subject to significant volatility and there's no doubt that the weather volatility is an increasing risk.
there are steps everybody can take to mitigate that to the extent that they can. I'm sure our growers are all doing that. They're all improving their practices. They're improving their mitigations, whether it be for frost, wind, on their orchards. that gives us the confidence that hopefully those volumes will come back and give us the volumes that we need for this company to generate the returns that it should be generating on the assets that it employs, that we can then in turn reward our shareholders. I think we've got refreshments down the bottom. Michael, that's right. do please join us down the bottom in the kitchen area.
And take the opportunity to talk to the directors and management should you wish to. Finally, thanks everybody for your attendance. My thanks to management and their expertise. Also thank you to the board for all the support that you give me as chair throughout the year. Thank you very much and thanks for coming. Just before you go, we will close the meeting with a karakia.