Te Puke: Helen Allan
I have been involved with the kiwifruit since I married into an orcharding family 26 years ago. We have 3 orchards, one of which is in Te Puke, although we live in Te Puna. I have a BSc in Botany (Genetics, Pathology, Crop Development, that kind of thing) and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Statistics and I am currently working toward a Masters in Applied Statistics.
We have always managed our own orchards since getting our first 20 years ago, and am still very much involved in the everyday running of the orchards.
My main area of interest at the moment is Statistics, which is playing an ever larger roll in our industry as things have progressed beyond the “Mum and Pop” packing facilities that handled the main of the crop 26 years ago to the sophisticated logistics we now have the and data analysis that is required all the way along the supply chain, from maturity testing to consumer response.