Kiwifruit Logistics Company, TKL Handles Enough Kiwifruit To Feed Everyone In India And China Twice Over!

Wednesday, 16 April 2025, 9:35 am
Press Release: TKL Logistics Limited

On average 6,771,600,000 pieces of kiwifruit
fruit is handled by TKL Logistics Limited each kiwifruit
season, prior to being exported around the
world.

TKL Logistics Limited (formally
Tauranga Kiwifruit Logistics) has played a critical part in
the early success of the kiwifruit season. TKL coordinates
the arrival and dispatch of all Zespri branded kiwifruit
through ports around New Zealand to key international
markets.

TKL is a company owned by New Zealand
post-harvest companies and contracted by them to operate
road transport services and port logistics. TKL transports
pallets of kiwifruit from packhouses to their site at the
Mount Maunganui wharf where they operate a 5200-pallet
coolstore to both facilitate the loading of specialised
reefer vessels and for consolidation of cargo for container
loading.

Also, TKL has been contracted by Zespri since
2006, to provide professional services relating to the
planning and loading of ships.

In the Bay of Plenty,
TKL’s contracted transport fleet consists of 90 trucks of
which 2/3rds are container trucks and 1/3rd curtain-sider,
enabling TKL to handle 200 containers a day on average,
equating to an average of 4,000 pallets of kiwifruit daily.
The Curtainsider fleet also transports around 3500 pallets
of Kiwifruit a day to the Port of Tauranga. With the
shipping pressures of this season, TKL has handled more than
250 truckloads in a 24-hour period – all without incident
– checked and safely loaded on to the ships. And the
company has loaded two charter vessels at a time on some
days – all of which have contributed to new loading
records.

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TKL Chief Executive, Ian Mearns, stated
“We’ve seen an increase in volume this season and
hearing that the total is getting close to 7 billion pieces
of kiwifruit is astonishing. It is great to be part of the
process and industry that sees our national fruit delivered
to consumers around the world”.

Last week the
charter operation managed to load and dispatch six vessels
in 8 days and the container team managed to send 1014
containers out to coolstores to load in only 4.5 days. “So
far this season TKL has loaded over 4500 containers and 14
Charter ships and its only effectively six weeks into the
season. The intensity of the season continues with 1200
containers and four charter vessels to load next
week.”

Innovation has been key for TKL’s growth.
The company’s bespoke logistics application is an
integrated software solution. “The app is used to dispatch
and track our transport fleet and pallets alike, while at
the same time sending detailed information to coolstores as
to what is to be loaded in a specific container It also
allows us to use GPS to track real time location of trucks
and share this with our customers. The application also
handles all the administration functions relating to our
accounting systems” explains Ian.

While TKL is based
in Tauranga, its operations are also undertaken in
Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Gisborne, Nelson and Motueka.
“Anywhere kiwifruit is packed for export in New Zealand,
TKL is responsible for the logistics of getting it from the
packhouse onto vessels.” Says
Ian.

© Scoop Media

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