Northland's gateway to foreign trade has opened a little wider as Whangarei's Northport officially becomes a container port.
Containers packed with kiwifruit are the first shipment to leave Northport for international waters.
Carl Muller is a fruit exporter who says Northport is a more efficient way for local businesses to get their products to market.
"This provides opportunity to get the fruit quicker to the ship and then it leaves directly from Marsden Point," Mr Muller said.
The new service also makes business more cost-effective.
"It's about the trucks and it's about the amount of time it takes to come from Wiri in Auckland all the way to Kerikeri here, and then to get loaded and to turn around and now it's much closer to the port so we can turn the trucks around a lot quicker. Less trucks on the road and more volume out."
Northland's economy is also set to benefit.
David Wilson, the Northland Inc CEO, says "there's some efficiency savings" which makes Northport more attractive to investors.
"It just makes it far more attractive for other investors to come into Northland, to look at those opportunities and to have really good logistics to get their products to market," Mr Wilson said.
It's believed the new service will strengthen the case for shifting the ports of Auckland north.
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