Sarita Cherry Orchard

Sarita Orchard Ltd was established in the mid-eighties as a mixed summerfruit and pip fruit orchard. It produced peaches, nectarines, cherries, apricots and apples for export and the local NZ market. The group that owns the orchard made a decision in 2006 to focus on cherry production and now have 25 ha of cherries in production.

Cherries are by far the most important summerfruit crop by value. Central Otago produces 95% of the cherries grown in New Zealand, of which 60% is exported.

Manager Duncan Mathers was born in Clyde and started work on a family orchard.  He then worked for 14 years as a field rep for Fruitfed in Alexandra before moving to the Sarita orchard around 1982. Equity partners own the orchard and there are 12 shareholders including Duncan and his wife.

The orchard is located in the heart of New Zealand’s cherry growing region five kilometres from Cromwell, close to the banks of the Kawarau River as it flows into Lake Dunstan.

Sarita Orchard produces a wide variety of cherries for the export and New Zealand markets. Duncan says they grow a range of varieties to avoid having the crop exposed to too much risk. They start harvesting an early variety in early December and finish a late variety (Staccato) towards the end of January.

Last season Sarita produced around 150 tons. This is increasing annually as blocks mature. As at January 20^th 2015, around 110 tons had been harvested with another 20 tons to go. On top of that the orchard also packs for other growers.

Once they’ve finished planting cherries, they expect to produce over 300 tons when all those new plantings come into production in the next 4 and 6 years.

They have no peaches, nectarines or apples left and only two rows of apricots remain which are maintained for gate sales. There’s a permanent staff of 8 operating the orchard packhouse and gate sales and at harvest season they employ up to 130 casual fruit pickers.

Duncan says there’s no problem getting labour. They open their website in September and quickly fill spaces. There’s a small campground on the orchard and as many as 50 pickers are accommodated there. They also lease chalets and run a daily minibus to pick up staff from Cromwell. The permanent key staff are all New Zealanders. This year picking staff includes French and German – and in the packhouse Chinese.

Central Otago’s climate of cold winters and hot summers is ideal for cherry production. These conditions give sufficient winter chilling for good bud initiation and the heat of summer gives the high sugars and quality finish expected of top quality export fruit.

Sarita exports from Cromwell to China, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, USA, and Australia. The Japanese market is now open to New Zealand cherry exporters. The packhouse is EuroGap certified and is audited on a regular basis.

The fruit is chilled to remove field heat and then processed through the packhouse. There’s an automatic grading machine that checks the fruit for colour size and firmness. The packing shed staff then check the fruit for any further blemishes before packing them in boxes.

Many cherry orchards cover their trees with nets to try and minimise bird damage. With 25ha in trees, Duncan says the cost of netting was prohibitive. On top of that some orchardists this year have had problems with wind ripping the nets. Instead of nets Sarita uses a range of bird scaring devices during the growing season. Sun reflective foil, decoy hawks, gas-gun bird scarers, horns and sirens are all used to combat the birds. This season Sarita has been trialling a type of light – called Invisasheild. It floods the orchard with rotating polarised light which birds use to determine sugar content in their food source.  The theory is that by rotating the light source it confuses the birds and they cannot locate the ripe fruit. The device is mounted on a pole which has been used with success on vineyards.