Zespri General Manager Marketing and Innovation, Carol Ward, says innovation is huge part of the industry with significant investment from Zespri, along with the NZ government and industry. She says, the company wants to share this work with its community and hear their ideas about where innovation could go in the future. “We want to show our growers and industry what’s coming up and the future challenges we’re tackling. The focus for the past few years has been on developing tools and techniques to grow profitably with Psa; now, we’re turning our focus back to other areas again and we want to bring industry along with us. And it’s not all one way – we want to know what direction our industry thinks we should be heading in.”

Zespri’s investment in innovation over the past fifteen years has underpinned its premium brand in the marketplace and helped the industry earn $1.57 billion in sales last year.

The Symposium will be held at the ASB Arena, Mt Maunganui on Thursday, 29 October. This will be followed by the Hayward Medal Dinner in the same venue, where the industry celebrates its finest people with the presentation of the 2015 Fresh Carrier Hayward Medal.

The early bird ticket package for the symposium and dinner is $150 and is available until 30 September. Tickets to the conference are $50 each.

Click here to view the full programme and more information.