Welcome everybody. Welcome to Seeka's Annual General Meeting for the year. My name is Mark Dewdney. I'm the Chairman of Seeka. It's a great pleasure and privilege to be able to welcome you all here today. Before we start the meeting proceedings, I would just like to invite our Kaumātua, Turi Ngatai, to step up and welcome everybody with a mihi, and to set the tone for what I'm sure is going to be a wonderful meeting today. Turi, thank you.
[Non-English content]
I will translate. To all gathered here at the Annual General Meeting of the Seeka shareholders. To the mana whakahaere, the Council, to the Chairman, Mark Dewdney, a big welcome and acknowledgment to all shareholders who've come here. An acknowledgment to the Great One who looks after us all. To those who've passed from the beginning of the year, to those who tragically passed at Mauao and at Pāpāmoa, we acknowledge them, and not only them, but all those who've lost loved ones over the past year since we've last gathered. We acknowledge them. Then to them, we cross the veil to the living, and to all of us, a welcome. My prayer this afternoon, cease the winds to the west. Cease the winds that come from the south.
Let only the breeze come across the land, and the dawn of a red-tipped light, the light that signals the dawn of a bright, brilliant day. We can only hope. [Non-English content]
Thank you, Turi, and I sincerely hope, as I know many in this room will, that your prayer for the strong winds to stop will come to fruition. Look, again, welcome everybody, and thank you for taking your time today to join our Annual General Meeting. I just want to acknowledge everybody who is here in the room and also acknowledge everybody who is online, from wherever you may be. I hope you're all safe and I hope you enjoy today's proceedings. I'd like to make a couple of apologies. We have apologies from Fred and Anne Hutchings. Fred, our Ex-Chairman, as you will know. It was only a year ago that Fred was here leading his last AGM and passing the baton to me. The year's gone very, very quickly.
But I know Fred and Anne would have loved to be here, but a very close friend of Fred's has recently passed away, and they're down with the family of the friend, as they should be, in Wellington this week. Chris Jensen, the Chair of the Seeka Growers, is an apology. Chris has got a good reason. He's harvesting his kiwifruit today, and it's all coming in here. So he's out making sure that that job is going well. And we have an apology from Neil Craig and Sheryl Tebbutt . Are there any other apologies from anybody in the room?
Malcolm Cartwright, if we could record that. Thank you. Come on in. I'd also like to welcome, either in the room or online, and some of our key business partners, Harmos Horton Lusk. I think Annie from Harmos Horton Lusk is with us. Thank you for joining us today. Tompkins Wake were planning to come. Not sure we've got anybody from there, but they're a key partner of ours. Our banking syndicate, Westpac New Zealand, Rabobank, ASB, BNZ, and Westpac Australia. Melissa, is Melissa with us? She was talking of coming, but no. I recognize them. Yasin from our auditor, Grant Thornton. Thank you for coming, and we have received proxies from the New Zealand Shareholders' Association. Yeah, again, I would like to just recognize them. For those in the room, can we just make sure that mobile phones are off, please?
Nothing worse than a mobile phone beeping when someone's giving their presentations. In the very rare event that we have an alarm or something go wrong, just make your way out the two doors to the front. Make your way over to the car park, and there'll be Seeka representatives there that will just take control of the situation. I doubt that that will come into being. Nicola's confirmed that the notice of meeting has been sent to all eligible shareholders and that we obviously have a quorum, so I will declare the meeting open. Let me quickly introduce your Board, my fellow Directors. Hayden Cartwright. On the screen, you'll see the committees that those Directors are involved with. Hayden will talk later on. He's up for re-election, so he will be making a specific address. Cecilia Tarrant, also up for re-election. You'll hear from Cecilia later on.
Hayley Gourley. Hayley down the end there. Sharon Cresswell, Ratahi Cross, and Stewart Moss, who need no introduction, I'm sure, to many. We've received proxies. I've received, as the Chair of the meeting, just under 12 million proxies. 1 million were received for the Shareholders Association, and Michael's holding at 234,000. I've voted my proxies for all of the resolutions, and the New Zealand Shareholders' Association has also voted their proxies for the resolutions. Michael, I'm assuming you'll be doing the same. That's just bringing everyone up to speed there. Let me just cover at a very high level, just as a recap, to bring everybody back to why we are here and what our results were. Our business is about connecting sustainable produce to the world, and we have several strands to our business.
We are a grower ourselves from time to time on orchards we own, but primarily on orchards that we lease or manage or have various share arrangements with the owners. Our job is to ensure we grow the best possible fruit that we can on the orchards that we are in control of, and that we provide those volumes into our packhouses. The volumes growing on our own orchards underpin a reasonably significant portion of the overall volumes that we process in our post-harvest service. This is still the core of our business, picking, packing, processing, storing, and arranging transportation out to the market. We are a major supplier to Zespri and a significant part of the Zespri and the overall supply chain in New Zealand.
We, through our Seeka Fresh business, grow, import, store, and sell a variety of fruit products that we sell on our own account under our own name in a lot of cases. It's a key part of our business and a business that's growing really nicely. As you know, we have a standalone operation in Australia, fully integrated orchard through to market, kiwifruit being the key kind of product that we grow there and the key part of the future that we see for our Australian business, but supported by a range of other products, nashis, pears, jujubes, and other things. It's a growing business, and it's a business that we believe is really strategic for the future of Seeka as an integrated produce company.
As you'll see at the bottom, our basket of produce continues to grow, and one of our most recent additions was the avocado oil that we have launched under the LUVO brand. Still working on getting distribution through mainstream retail in New Zealand. Once you see it there, please make sure you buy it and tell all your friends to buy it. It's a wonderful product, isn't it, Jim? Yeah. My wife raves on it. What do we need to do to ensure success? First and foremost, stay focused on excellence throughout all of our existing businesses. Great people, highly efficient packing operations, excellent support services focused on quality, focused on productivity, focused on cost. We have delivered really well in all of those areas over the last 12 months. Michael will take us through that in more detail.
I won't talk much about the financial performance other than to say it was excellent in all respects. I'll cover just the key highlights in the next slide. In our Post-Harvest operation, we run a sophisticated array of packing houses and chilling storage facilities through the country, and we're continually looking at optimizing that. I think the really exciting initiative for us over the last 12 months has been the introduction of Reemoon as a packing line partner. Very sophisticated and coming on stream really well. The Board had a meeting at Huka Pak this morning, and whilst the line wasn't running at full capacity, we could see that it was really good. In general, just providing excellence in terms of service to all of the parties who work with us, including many of you in the room today who are our grower partners.
Financial highlights, revenue up 7%, increased kiwifruit volumes, Seeka Fresh up, Australian volumes up, flowing through to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization up 26% on the prior year to NZD 96 million. Well, once you take the depreciation, the interest, and the amortization off, it comes down to a profit before tax of NZD 47.5 million. That was up 60% on the year before. The earnings of NZD 0.76 per share were up from NZD 0.51. That allowed us to pay NZD 0.30 in total dividends for the earnings that came from last year. That was up 200%. We've paid NZD 0.25 as you will have just seen. Total assets were up 10% to NZD 605 million, and our net tangible asset backing per share, NZD 6.31.
We had a great year, and that is an absolute credit to everybody who works within this business, from Michael right through all of his teams here and right through all the teams that support the business throughout New Zealand and Australia and everywhere else. It's humbling to be able to stand up as the Chair of a business that has performed as well as it has and be able to share those results with you as shareholders. We're very proud of our team and very happy with what we have achieved. On that note, I'll hand over to Michael, and Michael can take us right through all of the detail. After that, we'll do the formal resolutions and have Q&A. Thanks, Michael.
Thanks, Mark. Welcome, everybody. Just got to find the right button. Well, look, let me start by saying that last year was one out of the box. While we can take a lot of credit for the performance we've had in the company, in fact, it was a remarkable growing season. Fruit delivered to the packhouses was just tremendous. The volumes were great, quality was excellent, and we managed to do a great job with it. We delivered a great crop, then we've got the benefit to work with it, and the team did a very good job. We delivered a superior product to the market, on average four times better quality than the average of the rest. That's something that we take some pride out of, but it started with us receiving fantastic fruit from our growers right across the board.
I would notice that there aren't many growers actually in the room. Like normally there'd be heaps. They're out there picking at the moment, getting us a whole lot more fruit because we've probably got 40,000 bins lined up in the schedule now for harvest. Thankfully, they're there and not here. There'll be more grog for you that are here as a result. The drink bill will go down. Hopefully we'll see some upside in the budget, when we look at the expenditure for this meeting later on. As Mark said, the material is really easy to work with for me. It's good. It's a lot better than it was two or three years ago. The Company's fought its way back. Profit is up, debt is down, dividends are up. Lots of ticks, right across the board and exciting returns and performance for our customers.
Revenue at NZD 440 million is up 7%. EBITDA, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortization, a surrogate for cash flow at NZD 96 million is up 26%. Our profit before tax up 60% and at the top end of the range, we had told the market to prepare itself of a profit between NZD 44 million and NZD 48 million. We upgraded it four or five times during the year. It's everything we had, every wind we faced was at our back, and so, we're pleased to do that. Our profit after tax at NZD 32 million, actually up 265% on the recorded number the year before. To remind you, there was a deferred tax adjustment that went through the year before because the government removed the tax deductibility of depreciation on non-residential buildings. That's on the strict number. It's up 265%. If we took that deferred tax adjustment out, up 50%.
We'll take it nonetheless. A return on capital employed at 14.5%. Half the companies in New Zealand would be happy to have that number. Our asset backing per share, NZD 6.31. Yeah, a lot to smile about. A lot to fix, a lot to concentrate on, a lot to focus on, but actually a lot to be satisfied with those numbers. In terms of the bank debt at NZD 100.3 million, I think the most important thing there is it's down NZD 72 million on 24 months earlier. We've actually corrected the debt, and at the same time we've continued to invest. We've invested in critical program maintenance, plant rooms, switchboards, and automation right across the company. We have and we are building and have an array of highly automated packhouses. There's more to do there. Highly automated local packhouses close to where the fruit is grown.
We're pretty happy about that. We've got a five-bank funding syndicate, Westpac New Zealand, Westpac Corporation Australia, ASB, BNZ, and Rabobank, which is heading back into banking renewal at the moment, so we're happy with that. The last of the Northland orchards was sold last year. I think it was NZD 3.5 million. The leverage ratio, which is a key banking covenant as calculated by the bank, 1.3 to 1. That's the debt to EBITDA ratio in case you don't know that. Look, a couple of years ago it was 12. We're well back within normal long-term covenants. EPS NZD 0.76, it's earnings per share. We paid NZD 0.30 last calendar year. NZD 0.05 of that actually strictly belonged to the year before. It was a hangover. Of course, we paid NZD 0.25 since. Well above the 50% of EPS paid out to shareholders. Our EPS was NZD 0.76.
We paid out NZD 50. The attitude of the Board are really, if you weren't going to do it after a profit year, when are you going to do it? We've got the debt down. Shareholders didn't receive dividends through the harder years, deserve to earn more through if we have a good one, so long as the company's in great shape. It is, and it is in great shape even after that dividend. Excellent. Happy about that. If I run through the business segments that we've got, of course, our Orcharding business led by Barry Pennell, who's here in the room. I can see him sitting there behind Turi. Really providing our foundation of fruit to put into our Post-Harvest engine, occupancy to put into our hotel for fruit, if you think about it that way.
Long-term leased, managed orchards, and associated services, picking, pruning, thinning, girdling, pollination, all of that work is done by him. 40% of the fruit that we pack, we've got our hands on some way or another, 19 million class 1 kiwifruit trays. We do grow avocados as well. NZD 10.3 million EBITDA is up 66%, also assisted by excellent returns from Zespri. Yeah, pretty good performance from the team. Around NZD 76 million in assets, it includes an array of orchards where we have invested with landowners to develop orchards on top of their land, sometimes in conjunction with the government or in conjunction with iwi or both. There's 65 hectares in development at the moment up in the Raukokore region. We've got money invested in that and more orchards in our own right.
That means there's a pipeline of more fruit to come through in the future when those orchards get to full production. In terms of our Post-Harvest business, that's led by Paul Crone, who's the General Manager, and that leads that for us. He's here somewhere as well, I'm sure. Put your hand up, Paul. There he is, sitting behind Barry and Jim. We packed 47.1 million class 1 trays of kiwifruit. Not quite at capacity, got a bit more space. It's up 10%. We also stored some fruit for one of our competitors at OPAC because we had some space to store for them. If you've got to think about it, at the end of the day, there's a grower at the end of it, so storing their fruit helps them out. NZD 105 million in EBITDA, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization. Segment assets are just under NZD 400 million.
We've got a lot of automation underway and being used in that part of the business. We've got the new Reemoon machines, two in Northland, one of which is the citrus front end at Orangewood, one of which is a fully integrated machine at Waipapa Road, Kerikeri. We've also, late in the piece, purchased and commissioned a machine for Huka Pak. We only placed the order for that on the first of September. It was being installed on site on the 17th of December. It has been run now, and it's running to the top end of what we might have ever expected that machine to do with the configuration that we've got there. Really remarkable. We're very happy to have partnered with Reemoon there. That may give you an insight to what we might do in the future.
We are increasingly using our assets beyond kiwifruit. We pack persimmons, we pack citrus, we're packing avocados. We pack kiwiberry, although the numbers are another part of our business. We're constantly looking for more contract packing where we can use our plant longer and earn a return for them because it's really got no fixed costs. With no incremental investment, and we're doing a lot more there, and those assets are being used outside the kiwifruit season. Yeah, that business has had a strong year, but really because we've got provided with 47.1 million generally excellent quality fruit to put through our infrastructure. Great occupancy in the hotel. In terms of our Retail Services business, it's led by both Kate Bryant, who's here. I can see here, second row behind Hillary, and Jim Smith, right here behind Yaseen Mohammed, our Audit Manager. Audit Partner, sorry.
Two parts of that business really. One part is Seeka Fresh, our wholesale market, retail services, and export business based in Auckland, and Jim Smith running the Delicious Nutritious Food Company, the DNFC, which we named solely so I could get tongue-tied when I actually had to describe it to you. NZD 3.2 million in EBITDA, up 24%. We've got great growth in that business. It's got momentum. It doesn't have a lot of assets, if you think about it. NZD 12.6 million in total assets. We pack our kiwiberry there. Kiwiberry is probably the most profitable category for a grower that we handle, but it's tricky. When we get it right, and generally we have for the last five or six years, it's been an excellent return. Of course, we're working with partners. We've partnered with FreshMax around the avocado marketing business. We joint market alongside FreshMax.
Effectively, they've got markets for sizes of fruit that we don't have markets for, and we've got markets for sizes of fruit that they don't have markets for. By collaborating and working together, we can get an optimal return for growers. Last year, we were number one in terms of avocado returns to growers, but still not high enough. It needs to go up again. Outlook for avocados actually, interestingly enough, is quite positive in the year we're heading into because it's a very low-yielding year in Australia, so we're anticipating it being a slightly better year. During the year, we took corporate action, is that the right way to put it, to firstly make the assets of the previous Olivado business available by pushing them into liquidation, deservedly so.
We went and purchased those assets, and Jim Smith has led the introduction of new brand LUVO. It's taking waste avocados to turn into a high-value avocado oil for marketing. It has had a very positive previous history. We intend to reinstate that as we go. It'll take a bit of time to get its momentum, but marketing avocado oil and actually manufacturing, bottling, and marketing, but also marketing olive oil, macadamia oil, and coconut oils, primarily for culinary purposes. I could see some of you guys getting carried away before. That business has gone pretty well, and it's a small part of what we do, but it adds some excitement to the business other than just wrapping cardboard around fruit. In terms of Australia, as led by Jon van Popering, really a fully integrated business.
Actually quite integrated with what we do here in New Zealand as well, because we sell Australian kiwifruit, and then we go and sell the same customers New Zealand kiwifruit. We're selling the same customers New Zealand avocados, and we're selling them New Zealand kiwiberry. We're selling them all sorts of produce we grow in Australia. Actually, we've got a continuing presence in store in Australia, actually branded every day of the year. It's actually quite useful to us in terms of our retail space in Australia. That part of our business, NZD 4.7 million EBITDA, up 48%, really improved pear and nashi yields, and great demand for Australian grown kiwifruit. We've got more orchards to come into production there over the next two or three years. Its EBITDA, NZD 4.7 million on NZD 78 million in assets.
The return looks low, but you have to note that we've got significant investments in orchards in development that will come on stream in the next two or three or four years. It's a different environment over there. We've just gone through a very hot growing period, nine days in a row over 40, and no rain between November and February. When I say no rain, I mean zero, none. It's been a bit challenging in terms of the current growing season. A lot of excitement over their new varieties look very exciting, particularly those that will grow and do well in that environment. Just in terms of an update where we are at the moment, Zespri are forecasting 220 million trays of kiwifruit in the harvest this year, around 83 million trays packed to date.
We are forecasting somewhere between 45 million trays and 47 million trays, so slightly down on last year. It's not the same growing year. Currently, we've packed around 18 million trays and are packing to estimate. Normally at this time of the year, we might expect to be packing behind estimate. We're packing at estimate at the moment. Whatever happens next, we'll know when we've done it, but truly, we've just been through a storm, so we'll see what we get when we get there. It's a different year. The weather's very unsettled. I don't need to tell you. We haven't had any damage to sites from the last cyclone. We did put an alert out to all of our sites to please hunker down, check drains, check gutters, put material that might fly around away. Actually well prepared, and so no damage at all to site.
We have had some orchards that suppliers have damage in their orchards with artificial shelters go down, trees down, and things like that. While that might be an issue for those few orchards, generally, I think we can say the industry's got away with it. Any marking to fruit might show up another week or so. Weather is now a key factor in our harvest. Whilst, as safety will dictate, we are maximizing every opportunity we have to harvest when we get that opportunity. That is the game. We're filling up every canopy, filling up every lane, to get going. We're pretty happy how that new technology is running for us in terms of those sites. We're reasonably focused at the moment. The international fuel situation is a matter that we've dealt with.
Proactively, we went to transport operators and put in place a fuel adjustment factor, which is referred to as a FAF. Our teams are looking at what's happening with the pricing of fuel every week, and then talking to our transport operators and inviting us to bill us an increase each week based on the formula of what we've seen the week before, which is a fair and sensible way to do it, and we've had no negative feedback from our transport operators. In fact, they've been quite complimentary that we proactively have gone to them and them not necessarily need to come to us. Team's done a good job in doing that. Of course, the cost has got to be paid by someone.
In those instances, for bin transport, that's going to be passed back to growers. In a number of cases, we have to absorb some costs, cost of transport for RSE workers, cost of fuel, where we are the picker. There will be some impact to us, but look, it's not a significant number. Automation projects have commissioned well, as I keep saying to you. We are developing or have developed or are in the process of developing, one of those statements is right, an array of highly automated local packhouses available to pack our growers' fruit when they need it packed into cool storage and to put it into the market. We conventionally handle all of our fruit. Controlled atmosphere storage for us is a backup, a contingency plan, not a requirement.
We haven't needed to do it for the last three or four years, and we don't think we're going to need to do it this year either, by the way. We can say with some certainty, and able to prove it, that our fruit quality in the market is much better than the average. In terms of Australia, it's been a hot year. We're midway through harvest over there, too. The market is just electric. The fruit is going out as fast as we can pick it, pack it, and dispatch it. It's an incredible market at the moment, and we're pretty excited by the pricing and the returns that we're getting, but the volumes are down because it's hot. Hayward green kiwifruit does most of its growing after Christmas, and that's coincided when the heat's come on, so the growth rate's slowed down.
We'll work through that when we understand more about what that means. Australia is a smaller part of our business compared to the New Zealand business components, particularly in our post-harvest business. Our Seeka Fresh wholesale markets business has gone well. The banana category, which you may not know, but we're bringing in seven or eight containers of bananas a week, every single week has gone very well. We've got good customer response, good demand, and good pricing. Margins have gone well in that business. Under Kate's stewardship, along with Aaron Leslie in Auckland, that business continues to build momentum, albeit off a small base, but they're doing really tremendously well, good customer demand, really from our retail customers. That's the update from me, and I'll hand you back. Oh, I've got a video.
We're going to show you a video, so stay there for a minute longer, Mark. This is a little bit of video, so if you haven't been to see our packing equipment, here it comes. Do I have to push it again? I guess I do. This is Huka Pak. This is a camera grading going through. It's excellent really. It's going across the pre-sizer. In the background, you can see the class two grader for both the MAF machine and the Compac. Just a few grading tables there. There was 12 or 14 grading tables there before. Over 30 people standing there then. Now there's something like six. Coming through onto the sizer itself, running up onto the sizer, and then down and going into the packing stations. Next year, those arms will be gone. We'll have automated packing there.
Because we placed the order late, we didn't put that in place this year. We couldn't get it done. This is just a normal tray prep. Boxes going under the machine, across to the other side, to get fruit put into it. Most of these arms next year will be gone and be replaced with highly automated packing. Just for the moment, that is packing SunGold organic fruit for Zespri into size and going away to be stacked. Of course, we've got our Northland installation. This video is courtesy of Compac. This is the in-feed. You can see the bins going in and across and getting tipped on the traditional bin tip. Of course, we've got the robot doing exactly the same thing bin by bin, actually tipping the fruit onto the in-feed automatically. Less moving parts, 40 bins a minute.
Bags being inserted into boxes, no humans there. Thankfully, it's working. Wouldn't want a video to go out when it's not. Boxes going through, getting labeled, so it's bar-coded, and then pushed under the machine for tray prep. No people. This is a completely automated packaging in-feed. The cardboard's coming in flat. Fruit's being put into the box. It's going down, getting closed, and automatically coming down to the stacking station. No humans. That site there, normally 105-110 people, now running at less than 60. In this region where it's hard to get people to turn up to work, particularly in night shifts, automation like that, where you're actually reducing the requirement for people actually is very good. Of course, we've got more volume coming in Northland. We're going to need four shifts to run there. There's still the same number of jobs.
In fact, there might be more, but we're intending to handle a lot more volume in that region as those orchards and production comes on stream. We'll, in fact, invest it ahead of the volume that we know is coming. That's a little bit of insight to some of the automation. We talk about an array of highly automated local packhouses, including here in Te Puke. That's what we're talking about. Mark, back to you. Thank you.
Thanks, Michael. That was a fantastic overview, and those videos are very cool, aren't they? Even cooler when you're there seeing them in person. We'll have opportunities for questions about any aspects of the business at the end of the formal proceedings, which I will take us into now. We've got three resolutions to put to the meeting this year. They were outlined in the notice of meeting. For each resolution, I will introduce it. There will be an opportunity for questions from shareholders in the room or online. For good order, can you please ensure that any questions on the resolutions are focused on the resolution? There will be opportunities at the end for general questions on any other aspects, but please just focus on the resolution at the time that it is being discussed. We'll have a poll on each of the resolutions.
Shareholders in the room should have received voting cards on arrival. If you haven't registered and haven't got a card and wish to vote, please just make your way back out to the desk outside the door, and the team there will assist you with your cards. Please vote as and when you're ready, and then hand those back in at the end of the meeting. For those online, you'll be able to cast your vote using the electronic voting card that was received when your online registration was validated. To vote, you'll need to click on Get the Voting Card within the online meeting platform. You'll be asked to enter your shareholder or proxy number to validate that. Please mark your voting card in the way you wish by voting for, against, or abstain against each resolution on the card.
Once you've chosen, this is for people online, press Submit Vote, and that will be your vote. Voting will remain open until five minutes after the conclusion of the meeting, and the results of each of the resolutions will be posted on the NZX a little bit later on. Again, each resolution that was set out in the Notice of Meetings is an Ordinary Resolution, and as such, needs to be approved by a simple majority of the votes cast by the shareholders who are entitled to vote and who do. The outcome of the proxy votes will be displayed for your information after the voting, but I basically told you that at the start. Moving to Resolution 1.
Resolution 1 is the election of Hayden Cartwright, and the matter here is to consider and thought fit pass the following as an ordinary resolution that Hayden Cartwright be reelected as a Director. The Board unanimously supports and recommends Hayden for reelection. I'll invite Hayden up, and at the end of Hayden's address, opportunity to ask him any questions that anybody wishes. Thanks, Hayden.
Thank you, Mark. [Non-English content] Good afternoon, everyone. My name's Hayden Cartwright, and I've had the privilege of serving on the Seeka Board for the past three years. I'm seeking your support for reelection. I'm an engineer by background with many years in the oil and gas industry, before moving back to my roots here in kiwifruit five years ago. While the sectors differ, the fundamentals are the same, discipline, safety, efficiency, and a focus on long-term value. I believe my engineering perspective complements the strong and diverse capability on this Board. It's about bringing a practical problem-solving approach to complex challenges and ensuring we make sound, well-informed decisions. Importantly, I believe this Board works very well together and that cohesion is a real strength. Over the past three years, I've focused on contributing to operational performance, risk management, and strategy.
Importantly, we've returned to dividends for shareholders, reflecting the resilience and the discipline of this business. At the same time, we have returned to delivering excellence for our growers. Their success is critical to Seeka's success, and strong execution and service is the cornerstone of this business. Looking ahead, we face an environment that continues to evolve, whether through market conditions, climate, or increasing expectations. I believe my background and experience position me well to help this Board navigate this, focusing on shareholder returns with outstanding outcomes for growers. If reelected, my commitment is to keep driving progress, ensuring Seeka remains resilient, forward-thinking, and well-positioned for growth. I'll continue to listen, to challenge constructively, and to support Management and my fellow Directors making well-informed decisions for our shareholders, growers, and the community. [Non-English content]
Thank you, Hayden. Are there any questions that anybody would like to ask Hayden at this point? Nothing online. Well done, Hayden.
Thank you.
Okay, second resolution, same thing, but for Cecilia Tarrant. Cecilia's retiring by rotation and is standing for reelection. The Board, again, supports unanimously and recommends Cecilia's reappointment as a Director. Cecilia, I just invite you up to say a few words. Thank you.
[Non-English content] Thank you, Mark. I am very pleased to be speaking to you today. This is the third and final time that I will stand for re-election. Over the past nine years, it has been a privilege and a pleasure to serve on this Board. I am seeking re-election for a further term because I believe that I have a good mix of experience and independence, which means I can make a strong contribution to the Board in this final term. I continue, as a professional Director, to serve on a number of other boards, which provide me with both perspectives and experience that I am able to bring to the Board table here. I am very proud of what the Company, with the direction of the Board, has achieved since my last election in 2023.
The company has weathered the storms, both figuratively and increasingly now, literally. I am proud, too, of the work of the Sustainability Committee, which I chair. As I have said to you in the past, sustainability is not simply about the environment, although it is an important part, particularly with the increasingly volatile weather conditions we are all having to deal with. A number of actions have been taken to reduce Seeka's carbon footprint, which also have positive economic impacts. My priority remains delivering sustainable value for shareholders and acting in the best interest of all our stakeholders, which in turn will produce the highest value for our shareholders. Mark and Michael have reviewed for us the stellar results achieved by the company over the past year.
I would like to add my congratulations to Michael, his management team, and all the people of Seeka, including our growers, who have been part of producing these results. I believe my experience, combined with my energy and enthusiasm for Seeka and its business, make me well-placed to contribute in this final term. I would like to take this opportunity, too, to thank my fellow directors, both past and present, and Michael and his management team for their support. Thank you for listening to me, and I respectfully ask for your support of my election. [Non-English content]
Thank you, Cecilia. We've just lost the video, but you have a crack at that, and we'll carry on. Are there any questions that anybody would like to ask Cecilia, either in the room or online? Nothing online. Fantastic. Look, I would just like to add personally that Cecilia and Hayden, they're great directors. They do a fantastic job for you guys as shareholders. I really enjoy working with them both. They bring great perspectives and contribute really well around the board table. It's a pleasure working with you both. Resolution number three, standard annual resolution regarding the appointment and the remuneration of our auditors, and I'll just read the resolution. It's to record the reappointment of Grant Thornton as auditor of the company and to authorize the directors to fix the remuneration and expenses of the auditor for the coming year.
They'll be automatically reappointed under the Companies Act, and then the resolution authorizes us to fix the fees. That is the third resolution. Right. To finish up, we'll go to general business. I'll open up. Michael, do you want to run this section? Because I assume that the majority of questions will come for you. If there are any specific questions regarding governance or the board or questions of me as chair, I'm more than happy to take those. We'll kind of tag team it. Are there any questions? For questions, if you could put your hand up, a microphone will be given to you. If you could state your name and then ask your question clearly into the microphone. Questions. Ratahi.
As a grower, is that okay?
Yes. Well, yes, you can ask any question.
It's more of a statement. No, I'm not talking as a director, I'm talking as a longtime grower. I'm Ratahi Cross. I represent Ngāi Tū Kahurangi Trust. I just want to talk just briefly about the heartache that we had since Gabrielle and where we're at now as growers, and I guess every other grower here would feel the same way. It is really amazing to hear the recovery, the success of Seeka. Very proud of this company that's ours, and I'm very grateful for you guys, the management team over in that corner, especially. You're youthful. I've seen a lot of faces have gone. You're there, and you're doing the business. As a grower, I'm grateful for what you have done for us. It's been an excellent, exciting result. Thank you, Michael.
Thank you, Ratahi. Those words are really well put and received. Are there other questions? Nick, we have a question online.
Yes. Hello. I've got three questions here from Yin Ching Lim. Yin firstly asks or says, Hello. Congratulations, everyone, on the excellent year. With Zespri's aspirations for additional growth, how will Seeka support this? Are there any areas where Seeka is intending or planning to grow the business?
Yours.
CEO.
I can feel an anvil just above my head, waiting to fall. Well, you'll all know that Zespri have announced, which rather surprisingly, quite ambitious growth plans for the industry. The question's really what is our response to that? I think the attitude of the company, perhaps the Board and Management, is that we will invest where we can see that we can make appropriate returns for the risk and the money that we sought on behalf of shareholders. If we can see that there is a return for you, our shareholders, in taking capacity beyond where it is today, and we can justify that and those returns to the Board, then we'll take those investment decisions and cases to the Board to support that kind of growth. If we can't see that, then it'd be irresponsible for us, and we won't.
I think we're kind of excited. A whole lot more varieties coming, a whole lot more orchards coming, and if we can see a way for us to support our growers, and in particular, our shareholders by investing your money in those kind of investments to make you an adequate return, we will.
Thank you. Lynn also asks, are you able to give any idea of the impact to revenue to Australia due to the weather they're having over there?
It's too early for us to do that. Funnily enough, we know that the volumes of kiwifruit will be down. We expect it. Because the size profile is smaller, the reason why we're wavering a little bit is because we're mid-harvest. We're not through yet. We're anticipating what we've got to happen next. Funnily enough, in Australia, we make more money out of small-sized fruit than we do out of big. We're adding value to that fruit, we're punnetizing it, we're pre-packing it, and we're sending it off to the market at the rate of somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 punnets a day. We've actually got no fruit in store. It has been harvested, packed, and dispatched daily down to stock of zero. We can't quite work out at the moment what we've got in front of us, so we can't quite work out the revenue.
We just know that we've got a volume reduction at the moment. We're anticipating it.
Finally, Yin is asking about the LUVO brand.
Yeah.
Our expectations of that, are we looking to have it available in supermarkets across New Zealand and Australia?
It's been retailed now, and some retailers like the Bin Inn have got it in various stores, and we've got it pushed out to retail. You can also go to luvoil.co.nz.
luvoil.co.nz. I'm scared to actually say that to the growers and shareholders in front of me. It's luvoil.co.nz, and order it online. I can see someone's blushing. I can assure you, it's for culinary purposes, unless you want to turn green.
There are no further questions online.
Thank God for that.
Well done, Michael. I said earlier that my wife really loves the LUVO oil, but so far she's only cooked with it. Look, let me just also reinforce Michael's answer to the first question from the Board's perspective. Our view would be absolutely the same. Any decisions to invest more capital in processing as indeed within anything will need to be business case based, and justified based on returns for shareholders. Thank you, Nick. Another question? Yep.
Hi, I've got a question from Kevin Ascott. Kevin says, "Are you able to comment on the current capacity percentage of packhouses, and to what maximum level of fruit could you pack based on the mix of kiwifruit?
Well, it's kind of not my place to comment on other companies other than ourselves. I should start there. As I said, we conventionally pack fruit, rather than put into CA, although we've got some CA capacity. The capacity number itself actually isn't an easy number to calculate because it actually depends upon shipping, volumes in and volumes out, and when you get fruit coming in, and when it goes out as to when you're actually full. And of course, when you are full, funnily enough, you can slow your packing down, so you load fruit out, so you can put fruit back in again and turn it over. And so the number, if you listen to Paul, is a different number than when you listen to me, but it's probably between 48 million and 52 million- 53 million trays, depending upon the shipping season and how that all plays out.
We were not at capacity last year, and we did store a reasonable amount of fruit for a competitor, on a commercial basis. That was at 47.1 million. We weren't slowing down last year.
Okay, we've one in the room.
Yeah, I do have a question.
Of course, I don't know him.
A comment to start with firstly, and that is to simply offer my congratulations to the Board and the Chief Executive for doing a fantastic job, and for giving me such a pleasure this morning when I opened up my bank account. I am interested in the fact that Seeka has reduced its debt enormously over the past two years. I think the figure that I noted down was NZD 72 million over the past 24 months. Now, I guess the question is, does Seeka sort of continue to go with that kind of momentum? If it does, the debt will be cleared, by my estimation, in another three or four years. As a shareholder, hey, I'm looking kind of forward to getting all that money.
That's the question? Okay. I think that's more of an observation.
A sort of question.
Yeah. Look, it was important for the business to reduce its debt levels. As Michael outlined, the company focused on that while focusing on ensuring that it could grow capacity within the boundaries of its existing capital footprint, and that's been successfully delivered. The question of future levels of debt really start with the strategy. The company has a strategy to grow and diversify, and increase earnings and resilience of earnings, over a series of initiatives. Some of those initiatives may well require us to invest a lot of capital, and we're working on those plans at the moment through Michael and his teams. Any decision to invest capital will need to be based on commercial returns, and that will include returns on capital and ability to pay down any debt that might come as part of the capital expansion program.
You would not say that we will continue to just pay down debt as we have and get to zero. We run sort of metrics within the business of the amount of debt that we are comfortable having relative to the amount of cash earnings that we are generating. That sits in a kind of a range of 1-1.5ish, in normal times. It varies depending on where we are in the investment cycle. Our target is not to get to zero debt. Our target is to continue to deliver on our strategy, invest where it makes commercial sense, and run a balance sheet that's resilient and able to handle shocks if and as they occur. That would be kind of my view. Michael, do you want to add to that?
I might make one other comment if I might, being a shareholder, too. The company has thankfully had a reasonably strong recovery in its share price as well as paying dividends, reflective of its performance, debt and dividends, I think. Perhaps one thing that we could tell you is that we're knocking on the door of the NZX 50. Which would be quite a positive thing for the business, and who would have thought that two years ago or three years ago we would get in? Well, actually, if it was done today, if Standard & Poor's did it today, we would be in. The next review date's the 20th of June. We may or may not get in there, but we're right on the doorstep. Which is, if you think about life, that's quite remarkable for where this company's come from.
Nothing else online, Nick? Are there any other questions in the room? No, I think that's done. Just a couple of final observations. It was kind of 16 months ago that Fred Hutchings reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in being considered as a Director on the Board of Seeka. I was delighted to have the opportunity to join this company as a Director and get involved in the kiwifruit industry, which I'd always observed from the outside in my other sort of industry or agricultural roles. When Fred retired at the AGM last year and the directors asked if I was willing to take on the Chair role, I was, again, delighted to be able to have the opportunity to play that role in this business. A year in, I'm really, really loving it.
I think this is such a great business and the strategy that we have put together and the business that Michael, his teams, directors before us have put together, has a lot of very unique strengths. I think our regional footprint relative to the number of competitors is a huge advantage for us. The fact that we have a number of operating sites gives us resilience, which I think will, over time, prove to be a real unique competitive advantage and also a really important security aspect. We are looking to diversify our business beyond core kiwifruit picking, processing, and storing. We understand, as everyone does, cyclicality and volatility, and so being able to diversify sensibly will protect the business and will make it, again, more resilient for shareholders. I think all of those things are good.
Mostly, though, I've been really impressed with the people who work for this business, from Michael right through his teams and right through the business. We have a wonderful group of people. They are committed, they're passionate. You walk around, you meet them. They love what they're doing, and they're very good at it. All businesses have lots of assets, but in my experience, the most valuable asset any business has are the people that work in the business, and we truly have a great team. I hope that tonight as you get an opportunity to spend time with some of the staff, you will have the chance to get to know them a little bit better and to thank them for the roles that they are playing.
I would just like to recognize each and every member of the Seeka team at the end of today's AGM. Right. That finishes the meeting. Again, thank you for coming. If you haven't voted, you've got five minutes. If you have voted, then the bar is open. We'll just finish up again with Mr. Turi Ngatai to reflect on our meeting today and to close it for us. Thank you.