New Zealand kiwifruit marketer Zespri continues to keep some lots out of the market, in response to contamination concerns relating to a Chinese manufacturing plant that sells materials to one of its packaging suppliers.

Zespri chief operating officer Simon Limmer

A source close to www.freshfruitportal.com claims the supplier was UPNZ Ltd, but Zespri has declined to confirm the name of the supplier concerned.

In a statement on Friday, Zespri chief operating officer Simon Limmer said the issues related to just one supplier in one of its manufacturing plants.

"Zespri is maintaining its precautionary hold on some kiwifruit while waiting on further laboratory analysis of the mechanical lubricant deposit found in a very small number of kiwifruit pocket packs," Limmer said.

"To date, laboratory analysis come up with inconclusive results and we are continuing our conservative approach to managing this inventory with consumer safety as the top priority.

"It is unclear when the results of the additional tests will be available and we will provide more information on expected timeframes shortly."

Limmer said the industry's focus would be on managing the immediate situation to ensure no potentially-affected product could reach Zespri customers.

"We are working to understand the situation and this will take some time. If the decision is made to repack potentially affected fruit, suppliers which have used packaging from the manufacturer’s affected supplier will need to check and repack before that fruit can be accepted by Zespri," he said.

"The fruit on precautionary hold is still within Zespri’s distribution system so none is available to the public. Meanwhile the 2016 season is underway, with deliveries of Zespri Kiwifruit in unaffected packaging underway to our customers around the world.

"While there may be some delay to customer deliveries in some markets, Zespri does not anticipate these actions having a material impact on the 2016 season."

www.freshfruitportal.com