Zespri has its roots in New Zealand, a country with extremely strict environmental legislation. Back in 1991, when the environment was not yet high on the political agenda anywhere, the New Zealand parliament approved the pioneering 1991 Resource Management Act. Zespri was convinced: its kiwis also had to comply scrupulously with these regulations, and even surpass them.

The Zespri quality system that we introduced in 1997 contains a raft of measures for the cultivation, storage and transport of kiwis involving minimal environmental impact. It ensures that Zespri kiwis meet the most stringent New Zealand quality standards. You can read all about the quality system in the section ‘Quality system’.

A few notable points:

• careful orchard selection, with the result that Zespri kiwis grow naturally
• economical use of water: watering is directed specifically at the roots
• chemical herbicides and pesticides are avoided by means of radical orchard management
• loppings are turned into compost; other waste is processed in an environmentally friendly manner
• storage in energy-efficient cold stores
• recyclable packaging
• transport in refrigerated cargo ships

Of course sustainability is something you have to work on all the time. Together with leading research institutions and partners, we seek ways of reducing our environmental impact at all levels. Every year Zespri invests € 6 million in research and development, and studies of environmentally friendly production methods constitute a major part of that research.

To illustrate our efforts, we can cite a couple of striking studies and initiatives on sustainability:

Storage

• To reduce the emissions produced during storage, we are endeavouring to optimise the energy efficiency in our cold stores. An example? Removing the ice from the cold stores every six hours, instead of every eight hours, led to a marked drop in energy consumption, without affecting the quality of the kiwis.
• The cold stores in Zeebrugge run on100% renewable energy. The “Alpine energy” is supplied from hydroelectric dams in Germany and the Pyrenees.

Packaging

The packaging used by Zespri is 100% recyclable and printed using water-based ink. And yet we are convinced it could be even better. Together with our suppliers we are working on innovations such as compostable fruit labels (degradable paper or polylactic acid = a material based on sugars of vegetable origin).

Transport

Zespri makes huge efforts to reduce the environmental impact of kiwi transport. And these efforts have met with success!

• Zespri kiwis from New Zealand are transported in modern refrigerated ships. Transport by water leads to fewer CO2-emissions than rail or air transport.
• Zespri charters entire ships. This enables us to calculate the ships’ routes with near total precision, with the result that our navigation is as efficient as possible.
• Our ships sail 10% more slowly than they used to. In so doing, they emit less CO2 and consume less fuel. This can be compared to “ecodriving” in the case of cars.
• Zespri is currently looking into the possibilities of re-calculating the courses of navigation in function of the ocean currents.• We are examining whether biodiesel can be used as (an environmentally friendly) fuel.
• Tests with transport using solar energy are at a very advanced stage.

If you would like to find out more about our sustainability initiatives, you can download our brochure ‘Growing a better, healthier future’ which gives a detailed description of all our initiatives.