One of New Zealand’s biggest apple businesses has collapsed into voluntary administration, raising fears of job losses across Hawke’s Bay at a time when the wider pipfruit industry is enjoying one of its strongest seasons in decades.
Kiwi Crunch Hawke’s Bay, the country’s second largest apple grower and exporter, was placed in voluntary administration on 7 July along with five related companies. The businesses were all directed by Hawke’s Bay orchardist Wade Steven Glass and include Kiwi Crunch Exports, Kiwi Crunch Orchards, Kiwi Crunch Farms, Kiwi Crunch Nurseries and KC IP. Gareth Hoole of insolvency firm Ecovis has been appointed voluntary administrator, tasked with working out whether any part of the group can be saved or sold.
The collapse followed hard on the heels of a separate blow. As BusinessDesk reported, Kiwi Crunch Hawke’s Bay was the sole shareholder of Hastings based Crasborn Fresh Harvest, which the High Court in Auckland placed into liquidation last week over roughly $19 million in unpaid taxes and penalties owed to Inland Revenue. Leon Bowker and Kristal Pihama of KPMG were appointed liquidators of Crasborn Fresh Harvest and are due to file their first report within a month. Inland Revenue applied to have the company wound up, and its liquidation appears to have tipped the connected growing and exporting businesses over the edge just days later.
The scale of the operation gives the collapse real weight. According to the New Zealand Herald, the Kiwi Crunch group managed around 450 hectares of orchards spread across Hawke’s Bay and Central Otago. That makes it a significant employer in two rural regions where seasonal and permanent orchard work underpins entire communities, and it explains why the news landed so heavily among growers and packhouse staff heading into the quieter winter months.
No exact figure has been put on how many jobs are at risk. Hawke’s Bay Fruitgrowers’ Association president Brydon Nisbet told RNZ the association did not yet know how many people would be affected but feared the worst. “It’s never nice when companies go into liquidation or receivership, and it just means there’s often job losses and families that are affected,” he said.
Nisbet pointed to a familiar set of pressures squeezing orchard businesses. He attributed the industry’s challenges to the increasing cost of labour and compliance, and also the uncertainty of export returns, the mix of rising domestic costs and volatile overseas prices that can turn a good harvest into a thin margin. Even so, he was careful not to paint the whole sector as being in trouble, noting that pipfruit remained healthy overall, with fresh investment going in and growers coming off a good run of harvests.
That is what makes the Kiwi Crunch failure so striking. This is not a business going under because the apple industry is collapsing around it. If anything, the opposite is true. About 86 percent of New Zealand’s apples and pears are grown in Hawke’s Bay and Nelson, and growers in both regions have described the 2026 crop as one of the best in the past 30 years, with strong volumes of premium varieties such as Jazz and Envy heading to buyers in Asia and North America. Exporters have reported the season starting strongly, with returns to independent growers climbing sharply in recent years. Against that backdrop, the demise of the country’s second largest grower looks like a company specific story of debt and tax arrears rather than a warning about the fruit itself.
For the workers and contractors caught up in it, the distinction offers little comfort. Voluntary administration freezes a company in place while the administrator investigates its finances and reports back to creditors, who then decide whether to accept a rescue proposal, sell the business, or vote to liquidate. Orchards do not stop needing attention while that plays out, so trees still have to be pruned and maintained, and suppliers who are owed money face an anxious wait to learn where they sit in the queue. The liquidators at Crasborn Fresh Harvest and the administrator across the wider group will now work through the books to establish exactly how a business of this size ran up such a large tax bill.
The coming weeks will be telling. A first report from the administrator will give creditors, staff and the wider Hawke’s Bay community their first proper look at how deep the problems run and whether any buyer is willing to step in for orchards that, in a bumper season, should be prized assets. For now the second largest name in New Zealand apples is in limbo, a reminder that even in a good year the difference between a thriving grower and a failed one can come down to the state of its balance sheet rather than the quality of its fruit.
What do you make of a major grower going under in the middle of a record season? Have you worked in the orchards or packhouses of Hawke’s Bay or Central Otago? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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