Just take that mask off so you can hear me better, but I'm sure I look better with the mask on. Anyway. Welcome, welcome, everybody. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, and thank you for joining us today. We do appreciate you giving us your time for this, the 2022 annual shareholder meeting. My name is Fred Hutchings, and I'm the Chair of Seeka. On behalf of your Directors, the Chief Executive, our leadership team, and all of our staff at Seeka, a warm welcome again to you, our shareholders, to our online meeting. This is our third online meeting, and I'm sure physical and online meetings will be a format of the future. We also welcome to our meeting, Troy Florence and Rochelle Wilson, representing the company's auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Our legal advisors, Greg Horton and Jason Maddox of Harmos Horton Lusk are also attending online. As is Marcus Wilkins and Jason Bywater of Mackenzie Elvin. We also have James Miller and Melissa Barnett, representatives of the company's banking syndicate, Westpac New Zealand, Westpac Australia, ASB, the BNZ, and Rabobank. Finally, Chris Brown of the New Zealand Shareholders' Association is also with us today. Now, this is what we will be doing today. This is the format of what we will be doing today. This is our agenda. Firstly, I'll take time to introduce our Directors to you. I will then advise of the proxies lodged for this meeting and how shareholders attending online can ask questions during the meeting and cast their votes.
I will then give it an opening address, and after that, Chief Executive Michael Franks will present his report on the company, and we'll then move to the formal part of the meeting, which will deal with the resolutions of general business. Firstly, an introduction of the Directors. Now, in the room, we have Martyn Brick, John Burke, Robert Farron, and obviously myself, Fred Hutchings. Online is Cecilia Tarrant, Ashley Waugh, Amiel Diaz, as we know him, and you'll be familiar with their profiles as they are all in our annual report. Also at the meeting today, our Chief Executive, Michael Franks, Company Secretary and Seeka CFO, Stuart McKinstry, and a number of the senior exec team, Kate Bryant, Verena Cunningham, Kevin Halliday, Jim Smith, Paul Crone, Barry Penellum, and Jonathan Van Popering.
Having just mentioned their names and I'd normally say my thanks at the end of the meeting as a group thanks, but having just mentioned their names, I would like to thank the Chief Executive and the exec team at this point, because not only was 2021 a challenging year, but you'll be all aware for all the reasons that we know 2022 is proving to be challenging as well, and the team have done an outstanding job over the last 18 months to get us through those challenges. I mentioned that we'll let you know about proxies.
You can see there on the slide, the Chair, Peter Ratahi Cross, the New Zealand Shareholders' Association, and Michael Franks hold a number of proxies totaling 12,018,403. Where a proxy discretion has been given, the Directors, the Chief Executive and myself as Chair will vote in favor of resolutions one, two, three and five. In accordance with the NZX listing rules, as Chair, I cannot cast votes where I hold discretionary proxies for resolution four concerning director remuneration. Now, this is an important slide for all you shareholders online, so I'll just take a little bit of time to help you manage your way through what you need to do online. As it is an online meeting and at the bottom of your screen, you'll see boxes for voting and asking questions.
Shareholders can cast their vote using the electronic voting card. You will need your shareholder or proxy code, which are on the proxy form you received either by email or in the mail. If you require assistance, please refer to the virtual meeting online portal guide, or contact the team at Link on 0800 200 2020. I'll just repeat that for you. 0800 200 2020. Voting is now open, and you are able to update your vote at any time until voting closes five minutes after the end of the meeting. Now, we remind you that again at the end of the meeting, by which time you will then make sure you have submitted your vote for it to be counted.
Shareholders attending online can use the virtual meeting website to enter questions relating to the business of the meeting, and I encourage you to send these through as soon as possible if you have burning questions. Please note that only shareholders, proxy holders, and shareholder company representatives may vote or ask questions. Now, I'd like to move to a commentary on the company's performance at a high level. A number of Michael will give you some more flesh to the bone in a number of areas during his presentation. Did I forget Ratahi? Oh, sorry, Ratahi, if I've missed you out. I've just been advised that I couldn't recognize Ratahi's face on the screen, and forgot to mention him. But Ratahi, my apologies. As you can all well imagine, it has been a ch...
It was a challenging year, and it continues to be challenging, and you are all familiar with the reasons for that. I won't spend a lot of time explaining why it's been challenging. Despite all the disruptions, I've already mentioned and thanked management already for the job they have done. They have done a fantastic job in terms of their commitment and leadership during this period. Our orchard division, our post-harvest division, Seeka Australia, SeekaFresh, and the VLS laboratory have all performed last year ahead of expectations, and Michael will expand on that. If you look at the numbers, we generated record profits and increased underlying earnings. Revenue was up at NZD 310 million. EBITDA at NZD 56.8 million. Net profit before tax at NZD 23.5 million.
Earnings per share at NZD 0.43. We paid a dividend of NZD 0.26. Now in 2021, we also received some compensation for our PSA losses in 2010 and 2011 of NZD 7.6 million . So that was received in the period. So that's clearly had an influence on the results for last year as well. We've set ourselves a strategy which we've had for some time now, which has been to increase our geographical diversity to minimize risk and exposure to one growing region or kiwifruit growing region and to obtain the benefits of greater economies of scale.
With hindsight, it's easy to see that that was easy to say you get the benefits of economies of scale, but that is now clearly proven to be the case, to have that additional scale and achieving those benefits in terms of purchasing power and your attractiveness to labor and also to customers. That meant last year was busy in terms of the acquisitions we did. We bought OPAC, we bought New Zealand Fruits in Gisborne. OPAC was around at Ōpōtiki. We also bought Orangewood in Kerikeri. Over the year, we integrated those businesses. The Gisborne one was integrated more in this current year. Over time, they will be accretive to shareholders.
You will have seen we've already released information on those acquisitions, but Michael will introduce you further to those businesses as part of his presentation. Labor disruption demands two things, in my view. You've got to be the employer of choice, but you've also got to be looking for opportunities for automation and make use of technology. We've invested in technology this year that will help on orchard efficiency, particularly labor efficiency. It will also help with our own planning in the pack houses as well in terms of having a greater understanding of the crop size so that we can plan accordingly. We did that by buying into a company called Fruitometry, and we've taken a 26% shareholding in that company.
An infrastructure company like our own needs a lot of cash, particularly in terms of needing to constantly invest in capital. Constantly investing in refreshing the efficiency of our own plant, the need for cool stores, etc. During the year, we put in place a new banking syndicate, sorry, which secures additional funding for our needs for greater capacity, capability, and also in terms of the growth that we have our ambitions for. That is led by Westpac New Zealand, and the other parties to that syndicate include Westpac Australia, the ASB, the BNZ, and Rabobank. We have invested in new businesses, but that doesn't mean to say that has diverted our investment into capacity planning. We have a huge infrastructure which is constantly requiring reinvestment.
This year, again, we've spent NZD 22 million in terms of one of our pack houses known as KKP and Transcool, in terms of upgrade, particularly to plant in those, in their pack houses. That investment has driven to some extent by the fact that while we have talked about Pukenga, and we've prepared land for a new development and a new pack house, we still wish, before making decisions about that investment, we want to drive more efficiency from our existing infrastructure, which will include upgrading our plant and improving its infrastructure or its efficiency. We need more information as well, and that includes greater information about the market pack mix and what we should be packing into. We still have concerns about where in the supply chain cool stores should be built and used.
They're expensive cost. I think when I first joined the board, it's about NZD 10 a tray to build a cool store. Now, I suspect it's getting close to NZD 20. The way fruit peaks and its maturity these days is crucial. The efficiency and the turnover in the cool stores is a pressing issue. For those that like numbers, this is a number slide. As you can see, our revenue at rounded up, NZD 310 million. It's up 23%. EBITDA at NZD 56.8 million. It's up 32%, including, as I've mentioned earlier, the kiwifruit claim settlement of NZD 7.6 million. Net profit before tax is up 44% at NZD 23.5 million, and net profit after tax is at NZD 14.9 million.
When you compare that to 2020, the after-tax profit in 2020 included a NZD 5.6 million benefit from the changes to the tax rules that flowed through the deferred tax account. This slide is focusing on EBITDA. EBITDA is a good measure of cash generated by the business. As you can see, over the last five years, it's been trending up. A 19% cumulative annual growth rate. Which in anyone's terms, I think people should be happy with. We've always had a deliberate strategy to improve our operating earnings, our underlying operating earnings, and this is demonstrating this. Some of those years include one-offs. In 2020, there were one-offs on sale and leaseback of assets, but there was also a significant COVID impact in that year as well, which they don't quite exactly offset, but they go some way to offsetting each other in 2020. Despite those one-offs, yes, we're still seeing an upward trend in this underlying operating earnings.
This slide was probably of more interest to shareholders in terms of it comes back to earnings per share and dividends. Last year, we paid a dividend of NZD 0.26, then paid an early dividend in February of NZD 0.13, and the net tangible assets are up to NZD 5.71, up 10% on the previous year. I've already mentioned about buying in new businesses, and this...
I like this slide, in that it gives you a sense of how the greater regional presence that we have in New Zealand now, right down through that eastern side of the country, which is all ideal kiwifruit-growing regions. One of the other key drivers to wanting to acquire into more kiwifruit business was to reinstate our share of the kiwifruit business in New Zealand, and this has certainly helped us with that objective. We now have full service in all major North Island orcharding regions. We are very pleased with the experienced growers that have joined our business as a consequence of those acquisitions. They're all delivering significant efficiencies and synergies as a consequence of the greater scale and also our ability to remove head office overhead.
That's not our head office, by the way. That's head office of their businesses we acquired. It also gives us the capability to, from a labor point of view, in starting up early and retaining staff and being able to operate consistently once the season starts. Similarly, it's delivered more capacity at peak periods as well too, so that we can transport fruit to where the capacity is. The final point I wanted to make on this slide is that while we've invested in new businesses, we haven't stopped investing in our own core business. Labor is short, so technology needs to be able to give us the flexibility to redeploy the existing labor that we have. This is why we're focusing on that.
We're also conscious of the fact that technology comes at a cost. It comes at a high cost, but it also comes with a greater level of depreciation, 'cause the nature of the technology means that the plants, the software needs to be upgraded more frequently than it has in the past. So you get a bigger depreciation charge with technology. So it's a fine balance between making the decision to use the technology to the fullest extent and managing the labor component. We're making sure we do this with our Australian business as well. On the employment side, this slide's about giving you a sense of actually how big Seeka is now. We have 770 permanent employees, and we have a seasonal labor force of 4,000 seasonal workers.
As you can imagine, on an annual basis, rolling out the staffing system to 4,000 people is a big job. It's not just impacting on us, it's impacting on a number of industries throughout New Zealand, so there's plenty of competition to obtain local resource, and at certain times, there are severe shortages. Access to additional RSE workers in 2020 has been particularly helpful. You can see there that we've been getting new recruits from Tonga, Samoa, and Vanuatu. This year, we've got 850 RSEs in total. That also brings issues as the issue now that faces us is how do we accommodate them appropriately.
I hope that slide gives you a sense of the scale from an employment point of view, and where we are employing them right throughout those regions. All public companies have a responsibility for ESG reporting. E is the environment, S is the social, and G is governance. Now as a company, we've been reporting on our governance for some time now, so that you would've been able to see that in the annual report, our commentary on our governance. Our social and our environmental reporting is improving. Why I wanted to spend a little bit of time on the environmental impact and the work that we're doing there, we're undertaking to publish by June, end of June this year, our carbon footprint.
The base year of 2019 has been done and calculated and verified, and in fact, we've even published it as well. 2020 and 2021, the results have been calculated and are now being verified, and we plan to publish in June 2022 what our carbon footprint is and what targets we'll be setting ourselves and how we may go about in reducing our footprint as we all understand the environmental impact carbon appears to be having. We're serious about working through that and making and being as transparent as we can be. I mentioned earlier that we've now got the funding in place that we need for investment opportunities and also to fund infrastructure expansion.
What this slide is showing us is what the debt facility was at December 20, NZD 122 million , how it's been impacted by the acquisitions during the year. We've taken on some debt from OPAC of NZD 21.9 million, NZD 2.1 million with the acquisition of Orangewood, NZD 2.6 million with the acquisition or the 26% acquisition of Fruitometry, and other areas of investment of NZD 3.4 million. That's giving us a total debt of NZD 113 million at the end of the year was drawn down. We have available to us, right at the end of December, NZD 77.4 million of available funding. What will that be used for? Well, at the end of December, our working capital funding is at a low point.
Up to NZD 46 million of that will be required for working capital through the year, and obviously, that's leaving another NZD 30 million available for CapEx and growth. What the syndication has done has put us in a position where we're not having to constantly run to the bank to help finance acquisitions or growth that we wish to achieve. Now, this is what I might call a summary slide. Just to capture some of what you might see as the key achievements in the last 12 months or the 12 months to the period ended December. You know, this is my last slide, and I'll be handing over Michael, and he'll be able to give you a much more eloquent summary of the company's performance than I can.
We have grown our kiwifruit business by 33%. We're very pleased with that outcome. We're now sourcing our fruit right throughout the North Island orcharding regions. We've continued our investment in our central kiwifruit region, and we've talked about the investment in KKP Align. Our large business is delivering synergies. Our retail business, as you can imagine, has really suffered the impact of COVID. It has done an outstanding job in terms of increasing the range of produce and the customer base to which they're selling that produce. It suffered a bit this year because the avocado market has been tough.
We continue to invest in our Australian business, expanding the kiwifruit that we're growing and also been innovative in terms of using new exciting varieties and other fruits, particularly in pears and nashi, which have been well received in the marketplace at this early point. We've been bold in terms of investing in ag tech and in automation. Automation that'll help us improve our sites, our supply chain management, and also gives us the flexibility to multi-train staff and so that they can do multiple jobs, whether that be in the orchard and in the pack house or in the pack house and on the orchard. We've always had an ambition of being an employer of choice. We have a dedicated team that helps us achieve that objective. We have a strong company-wide culture and vision.
We have active programs to recruit and retain seasonal labor. It's the retention part that is important, particularly with variable maturity at the beginning of the season. We've enlarged our funding with our syndicated banking facility, and we're very pleased in terms of when we went to the market, that there was broad support from more banks than we needed to fund our business. As I mentioned a little bit earlier, we're certainly progressing our sustainability initiatives, and we'll be improving and becoming a lot more transparent about our ESG responsibilities. With those brief introductory comments, I'll now invite Michael to address you.
Thanks, Fred. Ngā mihi nui kia koutou katoa . My pleasure to talk to you and my warmest regards to each and every one of you on the call. In starting my presentation and my chance to update shareholders, I firstly want to just take a moment to give a shout-out, a statement of appreciation from myself and from the company to our growers, to our contractors, and to our staff. I would like to just point out to you, make no bones about it, this three or four months we've just been through is the most difficult trading period we've been through in the company's history. It's been extremely difficult. We've had to cope with labor shortages. We've had a pandemic running through and ripping through the business.
We've been devastated and decimated at times. Look, you know, we've had the pressure of insane supply requirements to get fruit through to the market. You know, it's been very, very difficult. We have called on the resilience of the company, our people in this business. You know, we've got assets, we've got plant and equipment and cool stores, but it's the people in this company that make it special. They have dug deep. They have gone beyond what you might reasonably expect them to do. We have maintained the service, and we are up on the pace.
Look, I just wanna start by expressing my appreciation to each and every one of our growers and our contractors and our staff to thank you for the efforts that you've gone through in this most recent period, because it has been something more than extraordinary. Thank you. In going through that period, I have to point out to you that we've done all things that we can do to make sure that our people are safe. You know, we're in a pandemic. You know, we've put in place an infectious diseases manual across the company. We've had RAT testing underway. We've had thermal scanning and temperature management at sites.
We've got protective equipment in terms of face masks, cleaning, all sorts of things that you might expect and reasonably expect to have happen across the site. We've put screens up. We've done assessments across the business to see who was publicly facing and had to face the difficult decision about whether or not people had to have vaccinations in order to do their job, to be double vaxxed. We have a current vaccination. It was very difficult to put that in place, but required. Alongside that, we've got the normal safety issues that we face as a business. You know, 75% of the injuries that we have in the company is our wrist or hands or fingers, or arms, and so we've focused on that.
We've made sure that we've got our permit to work processes right across the company, as well as compliance. We've got safety focus running right across the business. Our traffic management protocols have been huge. All of our sites have been restricted entry. People haven't been able to go on site unless you're essential there. 360 where we're based, at Seeka 360, has been restricted for people to come on site as we've moved to allow people to work at home to make sure that we're safe, and that we've been able to maintain service and maintain business operations. Largely it's been successful. It hasn't been perfect, but largely it's been successful. In terms of the results for last year, in terms of our total recordable injury frequency rate, how many injuries do we have per 200,000 hours worked?
Our result for last year at 3.3 is better than target at 4.5. We've held the target at 4.5 for the current year because we've grown the business by 33%. Therefore, it's sensible to have the target stay where it was as we cope with a bigger expanded business. We had no serious harm injuries in the company last year, and we have had none to date this year in spite of all the pressures that I've talked about. Our inspirational people, our target is a forward-looking target, not a lag indicator, but a forward indicator. It is measuring the number of safety meetings that we have within the business, and we're measuring the attendance at those meetings.
Last year we had 92% attendance, which is in itself very good when you consider the pressure that the business has been under. I applaud the effort in and around our safety and report it to you. Components of the business. The components of your business that your shareholders in today are shown in these four panels here. The first is our orcharding business within New Zealand. In New Zealand, we grow kiwifruit, avocados, and kiwiberries, largely on leased and managed orchards. We only have a few owned orchards which are either for sale or land banked. Mainly it's leased and managed. We have a reasonable business in developing orchards, and we are a large kiwifruit grower, in fact, the largest in New Zealand. That part of our business is growing up to 20 million trays of kiwifruit.
11% of New Zealand's national supply is stewarded by that part of our business. In the post-harvest segment, this is where the assets is. This is the hotel for kiwifruit. We are arranging the harvest, the packing, the cool storage, and the dispatch of product, largely to Zespri. In New Zealand, of course, kiwifruit, avocados, and kiwiberry. 11 facilities, most of them modern, most of them with a modern age class. We have spent NZD 180 million in this part of our business in the last six years. We are focused and have focused on automation. It's helped us well. We have the DNFC, the Delicious Nutritious Food Company, which is marketing innovative products around the side of our operations. Kiwi Crush, avocado oil, packing the kiwiberries.
We have an innovation and maintenance team that makes sure that the operations are running smoothly, and that we have minimal disruption to production when we're underway. 26% of New Zealand's kiwifruit produce is processed through that part of our business. In terms of retail services, this is where we are connecting fruit to the market, which is not supplied to Zespri. Within New Zealand, we're selling local market produce. We're importing produce to New Zealand's tropicals, bananas, papaya, pineapple. We're exporting kiwiberry, avocados, and kiwifruit to Australia. Avocados to Asia and to Australia, and kiwiberries to Australia and Asia. You know, this is a part of the world where we're connecting the supply chain from orchard to the consumer, and it's a growing part of our business. In New Zealand, we're up against the big guys.
The fourth part of our business is Seeka Australia, a very important component. Over in Australia, we own and lease orchards. We are the largest Australian kiwifruit grower. We grow kiwifruit, nectarine, European pears, plums, and now jujube dates. It's a very, very positive variety that we actually got ourselves into. We're the largest kiwifruit grower in Australia, but understand that's about 100 hectares of Hayward kiwifruit in Australia and about 63 hectares in development. We're integrated from orchard to market in Australia. In fact, in Australia, you can buy Seeka branded produce on the shelf at retail every day of the year from either New Zealand produce or Australian produce that we've grown. We are exporting a small amount of produce from Australia to Asia and Europe.
If I run through the segments in terms of a financial perspective, firstly concentrating on our orchard business. This part of our business is headed up by the General Manager, Barry Penellum. He took the role from Simon Wells last September. I thank Simon for his service in the role prior to Barry. Barry has taken the lead in this part of our business since September last year. NZD 77.1 million in revenue is up 2%. Reasonably flat orchard gate returns in this part of our world. NZD 5.2 million EBITDA, slightly below the previous year at NZD 5.4 million. Costs are growing or going up. Returns are staying stagnant. This part of our business will grow significantly with the acquisitions of Orangewood, OPAC, and will grow when we invest into Gisborne with NZ Fruits.
You know, there's a lot of money going into growing the 2022 crop. In addition to that, we have 156 hectares of kiwifruit being developed in partnership with landowners, Iwi, and Kānoa, the new name for the previous Provincial Growth Fund. There's about NZD 80 million invested in that. That will come into production and make us a financial return in future years. In FY 2021, we grew, sorry, 14.4 million trays. Our estimate for the current year is 19 million trays of kiwifruit, excluding avocados and kiwiberries. You know, a reasonably sized business ranging from Northland all the way out to Gisborne. In our post-harvest business, the second segment, this is led by Paul Crone. Similarly, a new General Manager. He took over from Kevin Halliday last September.
He's into his first harvest in Seeka. A big part of our business. Lots of moving parts. 11 packhouses across the upper half of North Island. NZD 195.9 million in revenues, up 40%, reflecting revenue, acquisitions, and price increases. EBITDA up NZD 61.6 million, up 47%, reflecting efficiency gains and volumes. 3.5 million trays was packed at OPAC post-acquisition. In this current year that we're now in, we've moved on. The fruit that was packed prior to acquisition is now coming into the Seeka business. OPAC, that part of it, Orangewood and NZ Fruits, will lift the post-harvest volumes this year. If you can see on the bottom right-hand side, somewhere is expected between 47 million and 49 million trays. Look, we'll be lucky to get to the top end of that.
It'll be somewhere around 47 million trays, I would estimate at the moment. We haven't seen enough of the Hayward crop to really come to a conclusion about where it's sitting compared to estimate. In this part of the next panel, Retail Services. This is led by Verena Cunningham. This is a dynamic part of our business. Verena also looks after strategy, corporate strategy for the company. This is a moving part of our business. It's got traders. It's got a market floor in Auckland. It's got a distribution center in Christchurch. We're moving fruit through to customers, retail customers in New Zealand and overseas. A constant drive to deliver more money to the grower at the orchard gate from their efforts. NZD 21.6 million in revenue is level with FY 2020, and NZD 2.3 million in EBITDA is below.
Quite simply, we had a very, very soft avocado market. Very, very soft avocado commissions. Soft pricing in Australia. Our revenue and EBITDA was down. It was down by more than the NZD 700,000 of EBITDA decline that you can see on the presentation in front of you. We've grown the business quite aggressively, but not enough to make up for and offset last year's soft avocado market and returns. Still a very good performance from that part of our business. In Australia, this part of our business is led by Jonathan Van Popering. Look, you know, he's a tower of strength, John. He's run that business largely through lockdowns, and he's been isolated and only supported remotely via New Zealand. He's led that business over there with the sales led by Cameron Carter.
NZD 13.9 million, and revenue is up 6%. NZD 1.6 million in EBITDA compares unfavorably to NZD 7.4 million. The NZD 7.4 million included a NZD 6.2 million gain. If you took that extraordinary gain out, we're ahead. He's managed that business in spite of lockdowns and labor shortages in that part of the world. Actually, in that part of the world, it has gone through COVID perhaps six months ahead of New Zealand. We've got 63 hectares of new orchards coming into production. Around NZD 11 million invested there at some point will come and start making us return. We've got exciting new products there. In front of you on the screen is a red nashi fruit. The flesh is white. It looks very promising.
The market indications is very positive from that. We've got new variety kiwifruit in Australia, although in limited areas. We've got jujube dates. The jujube dates look to be absolutely fantastic. It's an innovation largely led by John, and we appreciate him for trailblazing in that part of the world. Jujube dates grow in a very harsh climate. That's what we've got in Shepparton. They don't take a lot of water, and the market looks very good. I was having a chat to Costco this morning, and they told me that while they've got jujube dates on the shelf in their stores in Australia, it is the highest selling category of all produce categories. That in itself is quite interesting.
As I mentioned earlier, we have invested NZD 180 million in core post-harvest plant and equipment in the last six years. We've continued that drive with more efficiency, more automation. There's a lot of investment that goes in across the company in capital maintenance. Switchboards, safety, fire protection, guarding, safety, all those sort of things. But there are big investments that the board has approved that are underway or ordered within the current book. We have got the Transcool upgrade across the road here from Seeka 360. Initial 650,000 tray store plus pre-coolers. Can handle 2,432 pallets in a five-high store. Ammonia glycol refrigerant is carbon neutral. We've got robotics in that cool store. It's a NZD 12 million project.
Slightly higher than what we thought it was gonna, as we had to do extra ground strengthening to make sure, 'cause it's next to a railway line. Excludes a NZD 600,000 impairment to the old store. That's ready to go online nearly immediately. We've got a KKP MAF grader eight line pack line going in at KKP. It's a high spec, highly automated MAF machine going in down the road. It can handle between 6,500 and 8,000 trays per hour, with around 25% less labor. It's a NZD 10 million project, but it's late. It's late because of shipping disruption around the world with COVID and war. We hope to have it packing this season. We expect it to pack in the next two or three weeks.
NZD 8 million for the machine, NZD 2 million for the building. We have also approved and ordered a new upgrade for Oakside number 3. A new presizer to go into that machine alongside a Compac Spectrim installation with UltraView. 22% labor reduction for the machine. It's a 10% increase in fruit throughput. It's a NZD 3.2 million capital project. It'll be commissioned later this year for next year. At NZ Fruits, as part of the acquisition already ordered, is a new Compac robotic packing and stacking system, which actually we're quite keen to take a look at. We're happy that it's actually been put there. It takes out between 15-20 labor units. It has a NZD 4.2 million project cost.
It'll go in later this year to be commissioned for next year's packing. Understanding that NZ Fruits packs persimmons, citrus, and kiwifruit, so we get more opportunity to get a payback from that installation. I'm conscious that that we've undertaken a number of acquisitions last year. We've already profiled OPAC to you last year at the last touch and go in October with the stakeholder update. I'm gonna take the time to go through each of the acquisitions again in case you didn't attend that last meeting or didn't know what we're doing. It seems to me that as we do these acquisitions from time to time, we've got to take the time and discipline to tell our shareholders about them. Firstly, to remind you, we purchased OPAC in May 2021. It's an Ōpōtiki-based kiwifruit business.
Ōpōtiki Packing and Cool Storage, OPAC. Has an 8 million tray kiwifruit packing operation. It's got two machines there. A big MAF, which we're really impressed by, and a smaller Compac which goes well. It has integrated kiwifruit orcharding and post-harvest business. We would say that it's got modern post-harvest infrastructure. It's pretty good. Some things that we would do differently, but it's pretty good. Its services are Ōpōtiki fruit, along with fruit drawn down from Te Kaha in the East Coast, and also drawing fruit from Gisborne. It's always done that. 70% of the fruit that is handled by that business is SunGold. Cost us NZD 61 million. We issued new equity of NZD 39 million and took over NZD 29 million of existing debt from that business.
We did an assessment, which we got it done out of house. The sustainable EBITDA for that business was assessed to be NZD 6.5 million. When combined with the synergies that we have delivered or could deliver, NZD 8.6 million is our targeted EBITDA improvement from that business in total, NZD 8.6 million . We bought that business mid-season, and we packed 3.5 million trays after we bought it. Of course, these things happen this way. After we bought OPAC and got underway, integrated it, made the staff changes, heavy lifting undertaken by the business. That region suffered a wind event in November and December 2021, which had a devastating effect on some orchards, perhaps impacting by 1.5 million-2 million trays. I point that out to you early on.
These investments aren't made on a one-year only payback. They're paid back on a sustainable return. We've bought this business for the long term. It fits quite nicely within our regional geography. In November 2021, we purchased Orangewood. Orangewood is a smaller Kerikeri-based kiwifruit and avocado packing business. 2.3 million tray operation there. Needed more investment. It was at capacity and has more fruit coming. At the same time in Kerikeri, we've got a post-harvest installation that wasn't at capacity. We had significant opportunity to pack more fruit through that capacity. The concept or the strategy behind this acquisition is that we'll take their fruit or the fruit that we get through the acquisition and put it through our own plant infrastructure as much as possible. Only run their Orangewood plant as we needed to. It's a good business.
Services, loyal growers in Northland. It adds capacity and volume to our Kerikeri business. It cost us NZD 6.8 million. We issued NZD 3.4 million new equity. We paid NZD 1.3 million of our cash. We assumed NZD 2.1 million of their debt. We assumed a sustainable EBITDA of NZD 2.1 million, which is a multiple of around three. You know, I think we're pretty happy. Of course, that business needed to invest money in infrastructure. If you think about it, we'd already made that investment, so it's a way for us to get our payback faster. It's integrated in and set into our business. That's all been done. Our business is running really well. Very happy with the people who have transferred over and integrated into our company.
In fact, we held some positions open for them so that they could. More recently, we acquired NZ Fruits, a Gisborne-based business in February 2022, which handles 2.2 million trays of kiwifruit and also packs persimmons and citrus. It's an integrated post-harvest service, but although they don't have kiwifruit orcharding capability over there within that business at the moment, it is our intention to add it. There is strong growth in the region of Gisborne. There's lots of orchards coming on into production. There is good demand for orcharding services like we produce. In fact, we've actually hired someone into the business yesterday. He's coming back to the business to help us achieve that as part of what that business is doing. That's Tony Beal. Welcome back, Tony. We're very happy with how that all looks strategically.
NZD 22 million investment, including NZD 9 million of new equity issued by Seeka. NZD 9 million in cash, NZD 4 million of their existing debt. Sustainable EBITDA at NZD 2 million before synergies and after synergies at NZD 3.5 million. A higher multiple. That overviews or that gives you an outline of the acquisitions that we completed last year or leading into this, and gives you a feel for what we've now developed as part of the business. Fred showed you the regional presence that we've got. Let me just bring you up to date with where we are today. I started by talking about how challenging this last three or four months have been. This is an update about the current harvest up until midnight last Sunday night. You know, we've had everything this year.
We've had labor restrictions. We've had labor shortages. We've got no backpackers. We've been hellishly short of people. We've had weather that hasn't cooperated with us. We've had supply chain challenges. Sometimes I get accused of being too negative, but I'd call it fast and loose decision-making, and I think that's fair. We've had to proactively manage a COVID situation, which has ripped through and decimated parts of our business at critical times, particularly around key staff. We've had a late machine commissioning. We had to open night shifts early. Actually, you know, we've demanded more from our sites unreasonably than we ever have, and they have responded for us. You know, I continue to express my appreciation to them, but demand more.
We have imposed tight disciplines around protocols for COVID, PPE, and we have encouraged people, made them work from home, and then brought them back to the building, some of whom haven't appreciated that later move. Labor's been challenging. However, more recently, I have to pay compliments to Immigration New Zealand. Kate Bryant, and I went and met with them. Actually, you know, arrivals that we've been able to achieve more recently have eased a very, very acute situation. Labor supply now is a lot better. Well, now we've got the issues that you have when you've got a lot of RSEs floating around. I contrast that with Australia. We had a smooth harvest in Australia. This is not just about New Zealand. In Australia, business has gone really well. Harvest has gone smoothly.
They've managed their way through COVID as well. Pretty happy with how things look over there. Also make the point to you before I talk about the numbers, that we've achieved record Hayward prices in Australia and record prices at export for Hayward green kiwifruit. As at midnight last Sunday night, in terms of SunGold, we packed 14.2 million trays. We're 28% of the industry, so slightly ahead of our market share at 26%. Hayward at 3.2 million trays, slightly behind our market share. Our market share would be 25%. We're at 24% there. We would have picked that up by now. SunGold organic, 166,000 trays. Behind industry share, but only because of maturity. That's SunGold organic.
In terms of Hayward organic, 104,000 trays with 32% of our industry, close to industry market share. Sweet Green, 35,000 trays, all of that done and dusted, 24%. We'd actually packed 17.7 million trays on our way to something like 47 million, and we're at right on our market share of 26%. You know, despite of all the challenges, all the issues that we might have thought we had, we're there or thereabouts, and I'm pretty satisfied with that. I'm sorry, I'll end where I started. Take this time to thank all the people in the company, all the people that work in and around us, and who's our contracting community.
I'll take the time to thank our growers because I'm sure we've tested your patience on the way through. Thanks very much.
Thank you for that update, Michael. I hope you've got a sense of some of the complexities and the difficulties that the team is managing this season, and also got a sense of confidence that they've been doing that well. Now, we're moving now to the more formal part of the meeting and dealing with the various resolutions that need to be put to the meeting. As part of the very first resolution one, I will hand over the chair to Martyn Brick.
Thanks, Marty. Fred retires by rotation, and the board recommends and supports his re-election. I invite Fred to address the meeting.
Thanks. Thanks, Marty. I've got a couple of minutes, and I probably won't take that long to explain to you why I'm standing for one final term on the board. You'll have seen that the board is going through a refresh program. We ended up in the unusual situation or the unfortunate situation. We had a number of new Directors join the board at the same time. This is a complex business. We've got two new Directors in this year. We need to do a similar thing this term coming up as well.
I wanted to continue with that refresh of the board and continue to apply my hopes and wishes to hand the board over to a good team of Directors on behalf of the shareholders. The other reason why I've noted down is that I think my leadership skills and career experience still add value to this company. It is a long-term business. It has a strategy in place, and I'd like to continue to contribute to that strategy. You've also heard from Michael in his presentation that the senior leadership team is going through a refresh as well, and I'd like to help support their efforts. The final observation I'd make is that I do live locally.
I have time to do the role. Living locally is important in my view, and that enables I have the time so that I can attend grower update sessions, because the growers are, as we all know, an important component of this business. Without growers, we really don't have a business. All growers, or the majority of them, I should say. I shouldn't say all. Majority of those growers are also shareholders. I believe I'd like to make sure I have the time to listen to their views and make my presence available, should they wish to have discussions with the Chair of the company. With those few comments, I would now, you know, appreciate your continuing support for another term. Thank you.
Thank you, Fred. I put the resolution that Fred Hutchings be re-elected as a Director. Is there any discussion on this resolution? No discussion? Okay, no further discussion. There appears to be no further discussion. I will now hand it back to Fred. Thank you.
Thanks, Marty, and thanks for not questioning me about still standing. Resolution two relates to the re-election of standing Director Robert Farron. Robert retires by rotation, and the board recommends and supports his re-election. I invite Robert to address the meeting.
Hello, everyone. Yes, it is still me. I need my photo upgraded a little bit. Thanks for the opportunity to address you all. It would be nicer to do this in person, but maybe next year. I've been told three minutes, so, say 30 years of corporate experience. I'll try and keep the time. I thought that firstly I'd share my thoughts with you as to what attracted me to the opportunity of joining the Seeka board as an independent Director, and then I'll cover off how I think I might be able to positively contribute to the governance of the company as it continues on its growth journey.
Whenever I consider an executive or governance opportunity, I like to make sure that there's good alignment between myself and the company, and in particular, this includes purpose, values and culture, strategic position and direction, quality of management and board. I'm particularly interested in assisting growth-focused private sector companies operating in competitive industries. I like the high standards that Seeka has set for itself in terms of its brand values, select excellence, but I'm also conscious that it is the delivery of excellence every day that really counts for a trusted brand. Seeka has a proud track record of growth and is making great progress in building scale in its foundation business and resilience and capability across the group. In my view, Seeka is well-managed and well-governed. Nothing is broken, which is all great news for a new director.
However, as it is the case for all growth journeys, there is always more to consider, more to do and to improve on. Prior to accepting the offer to join the board, I asked myself what relevant experience did I have to offer in return, given that I don't have specific industry experience. The summary I came up with included the following. Development and execution of successful corporate strategies through a number of economic cycles. Disciplined and successful investment in long life infrastructure assets in competitive markets, including over NZD 1 billion in renewable energy projects during my time at Trustpower and Tilt Renewables. This resulted in significant uplift in value to shareholders. Risk assessment and risk management in relation to complex assets and trading activities.
Arrangement of significant corporate and project financing under a range of market conditions, including interaction with banks, retail, and institutional investors over many years. Senior leadership roles in publicly listed companies based in New Zealand and in Australia, which has provided me firsthand experience of how demanding such roles can be and the level of expectation and responsibility that is involved in managing other people's money. In a personal capacity, I've been a direct investor in New Zealand and Australian equities for over 25 years now. I think I bring a passion for investment and an investor's perspective to the table. In terms of personal approach, I favor developing collaborative working relationships while retaining the ability to challenge constructively when required. I have high expectations around performance, and shareholders can expect a professional, independent, and pragmatic approach from me.
To conclude, I do believe that I have a base of relevant skills and experience to make a positive contribution as an independent Director of Seeka and to ensure that the company is well-positioned to successfully achieve its growth ambitions. I'm optimistic about Seeka's future prospects, and I look forward to shareholder support for my election as a Director of your company. Thank you.
Thank you for introducing yourself to shareholders, Robert. I put the resolution that Robert Farron be reelected as a Director. Is there any discussion on this resolution? The team are shaking their head, so it appears there is no further discussion. I now move to resolution three. Resolution three relates to the election of Stewart Moss. Stewart has been nominated and is standing for election as a Director, and the board recommends and supports his election. I invite Stewart to address the meeting.
Yeah. Thanks for that, Fred. Just as a brief outline, I've been involved in kiwifruit since I moved to New Zealand from the U.K. 22 years ago. We initially moved to an orchard in Te Puke, and for around five years, I worked for Seeka during the packing season running a grader. This gave me a broad understanding of the handling and packing of the fruit. I was a member of NZKGI for several years, giving me an insight into the grower representation within the kiwifruit industry. I'm currently on the Seeka Growers Council and a member of the Seeka Audit Committee. In 2004, along with three Te Puke-based growers, we developed a block from a greenfield site. This is now a fully producing orchard with around half the area in G3.
I am grower-focused and see it as important to have a grower on the board to represent grower views around the board room table. I am seeking support today to become a board member and represent those grower views. Thanks for that. I didn't take all my three minutes, but thanks, Fred.
Thanks, Stewart. Thanks for introducing yourself to our shareholders. I put the resolution that Stewart Moss be elected as a Director. Is there any discussion on this resolution? Team is shaking their head and telling me there's been no online questions. So there appears to be no further discussion. By the time we get to the end of this one, I'll probably wish I wasn't the chairman. Anyway, this is resolution four, directors' remuneration. Resolution four relates to a NZD 80,000 increase to the pool of funds available for the directors' remuneration. Specifically, the resolution reads, "That the pool of funds available for the remuneration of directors be increased by an amount of NZD 80,000 per annum, for a maximum of...
From a maximum of NZD 350,000 per annum to a maximum of NZD 610,000 in each financial year payable to all directors taken together, effective 1 January 2022. Seeka's policy has been to set an annual pool payable to directors' fees in the midpoint range, in the market midpoint range. Every two years, the board seeks professional advice from Strategic Pay to pay directors' fees, with the last increase approved directors last year in relation to the increase due in 2020, which we delayed due to the COVID lockdowns at that time. Captain Hindsight's a wise person, and that probably was a bad decision because it meant it puts us effectively about 18 months behind the market. That increase was based on a strategic pay review undertaken for the 2020 financial review.
Having reviewed Seeka's performance in 2021 and noting your business has continued to grow across the key metrics of market capitalization, revenue, and total assets over the two years, the board considered it appropriate to seek an increase in director fees from today and restore the timetable of the remuneration reviews. One thing I have learned from going through the review and refreshment process for directors is that the company needs to keep itself at the market levels to attract ideal younger director candidates. Because if we're not, the modern director, from my observation would be, is quite fee motivated because they understand the risks they're taking on, and for that reason alone, we need to be competitive. Otherwise, we have difficulty attracting people from what I consider a relatively small pool.
This slide's to give you an explanation of the strategic pay report and the board recommendation. In January 2022, the consultant's Strategic Pay reviewed Seeka directors' remuneration and benchmarked Seeka against their database of more than 200 New Zealand private sector businesses. When benchmarking director remuneration, Strategic Pay considered the key metrics of 2021 market capitalization, 2021 revenue, and 2021 assets, and the sector that we operate in being the agribusiness sector. In the table, you can see the average director and chair fees for each key metric. At the bottom is the proposed fee structure. If this resolution is passed, which is NZD 70,000 for directors and NZD 140,000 for the chair, which are within the midpoint range of the surveyed samples.
This final slide that I have is an explanation of the proposed pool allocation. One of the things that we have taken the opportunity to is to recognize the additional time directors spend on sub-committees of the board, which we haven't done historically other than recognizing the Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee as requiring further remuneration. The Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee historically has also been the Chair of our due diligence committee in terms of any acquisitions that we've done. As you can see, from the acquisitions that we have been doing, he's been quite busy over the last 18 months. Resolution four proposes an NZD 80,000 increase in the pool of directors' fees to NZD 610,000.
Board proposes to allocate NZD 140,000 to the Chair, NZD 85,000 to the Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee, and NZD 77,500 for the Chair of the Sustainability Committee, and NZD 70,000 to all other directors. In recognition of the demands, as I've mentioned, placed on directors, the proposal also includes a NZD 7,500 subcommittee fee for members of the Audit Committee and NZD 2,500 for members of the Sustainability and Remuneration Committees who are not chairs of those committees. The Chair's fee is inclusive of all meeting fees. At the end of this meeting, the Board will revert to seven directors.
I put the pool of funds available for the remuneration of directors be increased by an amount of NZD 80,000 per annum from a maximum of NZD 330,000 per annum to a maximum of NZD 610,000 in each financial year, payable to all directors taken together effective 1 January 2022. Is there any discussion on the resolution? No, I'm getting head shaking there. That's. I'm pleased to see that. As there appears to be no further discussion, I will move to resolution five, which is the appointment of the auditors. Resolution five is to record the reappointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the auditors, and to authorize the directors to fix the auditors' remuneration and expenses for the coming year.
As PwC is automatically reappointed as auditors under the Companies Act 1993, this resolution authorizes the board to fix their fees and expenses for 2022. I now put the formal resolution to record the reappointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as auditor of the company, and to authorize the directors to fix the remuneration and expenses of the auditor for the coming year. Is there any discussion on that resolution? No. More head shaking. There appears to be no discussion. Right. This is time for questions that are relevant to the business of the meeting. Do we have any questions? Head shaking. There are some questions. So Stuart, have you got those in front of you?
We do, Mr. Chairman. The first question relates to Seeka Australia. It's from Chris Brown from the New Zealand Shareholders' Association. He asked: What are some of the positive reasons for such a move, Australian harvest versus New Zealand?
Right. Michael, you've already given some commentary on that. Do you want to...
In Australia, firstly because we're ahead of the COVID situation over there, John's been able to sort of better organize his people around the varieties. I can do that from here, can't I? Yep, yep. He can better organize his people around the varieties and what the market expects them to do, so to flow through. Actually has done a really good job of matching his resources to actually meet the pressing demands of the market for each of the varieties going after. In our situation, we've got 11 packhouses to organize here in New Zealand. We also have to deal with Zespri, the marketer, who themselves wants us to pack fruit. I can see people wincing. We can.
It wants us to pack fruit in a certain order, which may actually not suit what the business needs to do in a pandemic and may not suit, you know, the pressures to be able to do things safely. We have things like midnight cutoffs to earn certain premiums. Over here, it's been less smooth. It's been a little bit more difficult. I think to Zespri's defense, they haven't had to deal with a supplier that works in all the regions now, which we do. There have to be some reconditioning of the supply chain processes, I think, as a result of the season and after the season.
Thank you, Michael.
Thank you. Another question. This one also from Chris Brown from the New Zealand Shareholders' Association. It relates to slide 15. He just really wanted confirmation that NZD 3.4 million, that it says other was not actually acquisitions. If so, that was actually just other movements.
Right.
In the limit.
Stuart, I suspect you're the best person placed to answer that, aren't you? Given that you put that slide together.
Yeah. Chris, that's the slide shows the movement in the facility limit, which increased from NZD 122 million up to NZD 190 million, approximately. It also showed the actual utilization of that limit, which increased from NZD 83 million at December 2020 through to NZD 113 million at 2021. In that movement, there were three businesses: two we acquired, and a third we invested in. We acquired their debt with those acquisitions. That was OPAC and Orangewood. Then we had the Fruitometry investment of NZD 2.6 million. The remaining NZD 3.4 million just relates to general movements in our term loan facility around CapEx and general movements.
Thank you, Stuart. Hopefully that's answered your question, Chris. Are there any more questions today?
There is. There was a question. Just one. I'll just come to Mr. Chairman.
Of course, of course.
One moment. This is a question from Warren Coventry. Was any consideration given to paying a special dividend to shareholders following the receipt of the PSA claim refund?
No, there wasn't specifically consideration given to that. Obviously it did provide us with cash. We also brought forward the February dividend to the 22nd of February, I think it was, from memory. In making that decision, we needed to make sure we had the cash we had available, and the PSA settlement claim would have helped with that. Because we were issuing shares to the Gisborne business, New Zealand Fruits, and those shareholders as part of their exit had effectively been paid out through the retained earnings of the business, we didn't want them to participate in a Seeka dividend payment as well.
Thank you. Now I'll just check for other questions. I had a general comment from Carly van Camp, just basically asking around the annual reports, if they could see photographs of the directors in future. There was also a question from Margaret Gordon just questioning around automation and just some clarification if it related just solely to the pack house or did it also include orchards and picking specifically.
Stuart, the first one was about photos of directors. I think we think we're all too ugly to have it in such a great report. Apart from that we can take that on board. Stuart, the second question, I have struggled to hear you.
Relates to automation and, did that include automation in the orchards as well as automation in the post-harvest?
Yeah. That's the Fruitometry investment will help, not necessarily directly with automation, but the ability to efficiently use labor in the orchards so that technology will be able to direct on orchard activity to where it's needed. If the question is related to automated picking technology, which I suspect there has been some publicity about that, the answer to that is no. Because as my understanding of how robots work, it's a very complex piece of technology to replicate the human arm in a robot that has the ability of movement and sensitivity and touch, because kiwifruit don't like being squeezed too hard.
No further questions.
No further questions. Thanks, Stuart. Well, if there are no further questions, we should move to just remind you to go online and cast your vote, if you have not already done so. You will have five minutes after the close of this meeting to submit and exercise your vote. I'd just like to, before I close the meeting, acknowledge some retirements. See, this might make my point about the attractiveness of directors in the annual report. Here's two that are two of our more attractive. This is John and Mel, who are both retiring today. John was the former CEO of Te Awanui Huka Pak, which was a company that was bought by Seeka probably 10 years ago, Michael, 11 years ago.
Joined the board in 2012 when Te Awanui Huka Pak was amalgamated into Seeka. I, at a personal level, have appreciated John's contribution and his knowledge of the industry and his valuation knowledge. He's made a fantastic contribution to the board, and I thank John for that. Mel joined the board when Farmind took a significant cornerstone stake in Seeka, at one stage reaching close to 20% of the stock in the company. Mel has brought an Asian and international perspective to the fruit marketing business to our board table, which we've been appreciative of over a number of years that Mel has been on the board.
It's because of COVID and flight restrictions; it is now some time since Mel has been able to actually sit face-to-face in a meeting at the board table. We've certainly made sure Mel had to get out of bed early in the morning. I think 3:00 A.M. every morning, he had to join our board meetings, and we appreciate Mel's contribution, and I thank him on behalf of shareholders for that and wish him every success for the future. Now, this handsome young man is Stuart McKinstry, our Chief Financial Officer. Stuart is retiring at the end of the month after 16 years with the company.
In fact, the guide of the company through, if you run your eye down that, you'll see, and as a nice reminder in many respects of all our activity and the growth that Seeka has experienced over that 16-year period. Stuart has been a key participant in all our activity. I won't read through them individually as I think you can all see those there. The one I will pick out is that Stuart's contribution in terms of the PSA claim in respect of all growers that were part of that claim, and also obviously Seeka as a grower as well.
At a personal level, I'd like to express my thanks to Stuart, in that he was the person that helped me understand the financials of this company. Seeka has numerous revenue streams, and there are a number of complexities to get your head around to fully understand the financial and the management accounts, and Stuart helped me with that. He's also, as the Company Secretary, has made sure I kept in accordance with the various protocols that we have and the policies that we have. Thank you, I appreciate all your help at a personal level and in respect of keeping me in line. Thank you, Stuart, for your contribution to the company. It's been significant.
I'd also like to thank the board as a team, and thank them also for the support they give me as the Chair throughout the year. It hasn't been easy meeting on Zoom. My observation with Zoom meetings is that they are good for getting the business done, but I'm not sure they contribute well to innovation or creative thinking. You need to be in the same room for that to happen. The sooner we can get back in the same room, the better. I'd like to thank management and staff again. Without their commitment, their flexibility, the modern word which has probably become hectic now is their ability to pivot. We've had people from head office working in pack houses.
We've had people doing jobs all around the company that, when they signed their employment contract, would have never seen those as part of their responsibility, but they certainly have in terms of the loyalty that they've shown for this company during this difficult period that Michael very eloquently explained to you. The staff have just been absolutely fantastic. I thank them on behalf of the directors and shareholders, growers and contractors, for your ongoing support. You're a key stakeholder in our business. You quite rightly put the pressure on us at all stages. That pressure also helps management and the company respond to make sure it's meeting the needs of those stakeholders.
Our customers and consumer, and the end consumers, at the end of the day, we've got to produce a product that is high quality and people want to pay for and pay a premium. That's the challenge. It starts on the orchard, and it flows right through the supply chain, right to our customers who market it and ultimately to our consumers. We thank you for the interest you have in Seeka. Finally, but not least, thank you to the shareholders. Your continuing in the company is important to us. We understand that we are stewarding your money that you've invested in Seeka, and I just like to assure you that we take that part of our responsibility seriously. It's now exactly 4:00 P.M .
You have five minutes from now to cast your vote. With that final comment, I now draw the meeting to a close and thank everybody for your attendance. Thank you for joining us and taking the time to get online and learn and hear more about the company. Thank you.