From its beginnings in 2009 as a small and humble kiwifruit packhouse located in Mount Maunganui, Mount Pack & Cool (Mpac) has evolved as a significant success story within the industry, with enviable growth built upon performance, a passion for providing growers with a high level of service and capacity.
The company was founded by Jan Benes, Andrew Darling and Craig Lemon, and within the first year, packed one million trays of kiwifruit. Fast forward to 2016, the company was packing six million trays and had reached capacity at the Mount Maunganui facility. With its eye on the future, Mpac commenced development of a new state-of-the-art kiwifruit facility in Tauriko, a suburb of Tauranga, moving into its new home in 2018.
Brendon Lee joined the business in 2012 with experience that spanned the entire sector — from growing to post-harvest, Zespri, grower relations and entities and a variety of senior management and governance positions. Together with Andrew Scott, Brendon became a Mpac shareholder in 2018 and has held the mantle of Managing Director since 2021. Jan continues to be Executive Director and Craig a Director.
“Back in 2018, we set about designing and building the most modern, state-of-the-art, purpose-built post-harvest kiwifruit facility in the world. Since then we have added a huge amount of capacity into the industry, which has meant that we have grown from six million trays to over twenty-one million trays this season.”
Under the management of Mpac’s sister company Groplus, the catchment is about 800 hectares, growing gold, green and red kiwifruit. “Growers have a few options available to them including straight management where we manage the orchard and do all the work on it, with the grower paying all the bills and receiving income from the orchard. Another option is to lease the orchard where we manage and operate the orchard, pay the bills and receive the income from the orchard on a profit-share basis. A third option is a straight contract for packhouse and coolstore services, and around 70% of the business that goes through the packhouse is under that arrangement.”
While Mpac’s wider catchment goes as far north as Auckland and as far south as Gisborne, the fruit is predominantly based around the Bay of Plenty — Katikati, Tauranga, Te Puke and Whakatane — making Tauriko central location key for Mpac. “Tauriko is also close to the Port of Tauranga which is where all of our fruit ends up before sailing to our markets around the world. Being close to the Port helps with logistics and costs. We are also close to the Tauranga residential suburbs, making it a short commute for our staff to get to work and that is always an appealing factor, especially with rising fuel costs.”
Brendon says the Tauriko location was also about future-proofing the business. “Because we are in an industrial/commercial area of Tauriko it provided Mpac with future options. If for some reason kiwifruit was ever to succumb to disease like Psa, or something else happened we had a building that was on valuable land and could be repurposed.”
Mpac’s current site that is developed and finished sits at around 6.5 hectares and is made up of a mixture of packhouse and coolstores. An additional 3 hectares of coolstore is now being constructed and will provide an additional five million trays of static coolstore capacity, ready for next season’s harvest. “There is a combination of drivers for our growth,” says Brendon. “There is a lot of market talk about how much growth the kiwifruit industry has, but it has fluctuated with ups and downs over the last five years.”
“We have had a record crop this last season and in conjunction with that, fruit quality has been very good as was the weather and labour availability. It was a harvest where all the stars aligned, and so far, everything is going well with the fruit selling to the market. So it looks as though it’s going to be a good year, which is long overdue after the last couple of years, so that’s good for the growers. But what we have been very successful in doing is picking up a greater market share and converting more growers over to Mpac, and that is about providing customer service, performance and the capacity that we have added into the industry. And it’s about the pricing we can offer growers as a result of all those things.”
Brendon also acknowledges that Mpac has worked very hard at fostering that small family business vibe, despite now being a large organisation employing over 100 permanent full-time staff. “That is part of the DNA that we instill throughout the company, and the growers appreciate that personal touch. They put a lot of value and trust in relationships, and don’t like to be just a number. It is an important factor.”
Mpac has also achieved its goal of being the most automated packhouse in the kiwifruit industry, streamlined from the moment the kiwifruit bin arrives to the point that the last pallet leaves, and done with the least amount of human interaction possible. “We have leveraged all the latest automation that was available to the kiwifruit industry to make the process efficient and productive, with those savings passed on to growers. That has also helped with our growth strategy. The same with our coolstores. They have been streamlined with available automation implemented, and that is also paying dividends with efficient rates and savings for growers.”
While Mpac was already well on the automation pathway when COVID struck Kiwi shores, Brendon says there is absolutely nothing like a global pandemic to heighten the need to take action. “The kiwifruit industry had always relied on a higher influx of seasonal staff, be that backpackers or RSE workers, and we quickly learned that we were quite susceptible to the borders closing. So yes, the need for automation was certainly underlined.”
Mpac’s team of full-time permanent staff are drawn from the local Tauranga region and cover a broad range of roles from administration, production, quality logistics, coolstore operation, repairs & maintenance, forklift drivers, grower services liaison, through to management and the executive team. “Some of our people are founding employees, and we always celebrate milestones and anniversaries. It is nice to acknowledge and reward those staff who have been with us for quite some time now.”
During the busy three-month harvest period of March, April and May, Mpac operates 24/7, and team numbers swell by about 800 during harvest time across the coolstore and packhouse operations, with multiple shifts and rotating people to give them a couple of days off a week. Promoting within is one of Mpac’s key values, with external appointments only occurring in the absence of a suitable candidate within the existing team.
“There are people now in senior management roles that started on the floor as seasonal staff and have progressed through the various ranks. So there are good development pathways, and because we have had so much growth, it offers more opportunities to bring staff through. We also run staff development and leadership courses annually to upskill our staff. Mpac has been such a success story in the industry, and it has got our name and brand out there. People like job security, and if they see a company that is growing and doing well then typically they will gravitate to those companies. People also like an opportunity to grow and develop, and we have had a lot of people visit us, looking for an opportunity. That has made for a really strong team.”
While seldom having time to reflect on everything that has been achieved over the last few years, Brendon admits to being immensely proud of what the company has achieved, what the staff has achieved and what he has achieved to date. “It has not been without its blood, sweat and tears, but it has certainly been one hell of a ride. What we have today should not be underestimated. I’m immensely proud.”