Ten years after the Labour Government took away the Apple and Pear Board's (ENZA) monopoly on exporting apples, growers are still debating whether it was the right move.
At the National Pipfruit conference in Havelock North, fourth generation Hawke's Bay fruitgrower John Paynter chaired a 90-minute debate between four prominent apple growers.
He told the conference that during its 53-year history the Apple and Pear Board oversaw major changes in both apple production and the way the export crop was marketed.
By the year 2000, he said , small and medium-sized growers were exporting 18 million cartons of apples under one brand.
Deregulation in 2001 meant significant changes and repositioning from being a supplier to ENZA to being in the free market world, he said.
Grant Sinclair, a director of Scales Corporation which owns New Zealand's largest apple grower, packer and exporter, says there have been ups and downs since ENZA lost its monopoly on exports, but it was the right decision.
He says new marketing opportunities are opening up, banks are still funding industry expansion despite being a little more selective than in the past and new people are buying into the industry.
Mr Sinclair is optimistic growers can make a decent living in the future, but says some changes in marketing apples overseas are necessary, such as continuing to reduce what he called the "ship and hope" policy.
Stronger strategic alliances between groups of growers and key customers around the world are also needed, he says.
Organic grower happy with deregulation
John Bostock from Hastings, the largest grower in New Zealand of organic apples, described the era before de-regulation of apple exports as the bad old days.
He cited an example of meeting customers 15 years ago who were desperate to get New Zealand organic apples. The former monopoly had told them it was not possible to grow organic apples in New Zealand, while having told him there was no market for the produce, he said.
Mr Bostock says it's wrong to compare the export growth of the kiwifruit industry, controlled by the co-operative Zespri, with the deregulated apple industry.
He says if apple growers had the same access to markets such as Australia, Korea, Japan and direct entry into China, and 30% of the world's production, the apple industry would also have grown into a billion dollar plus industry.
