Kiwifruit is a major horticultural export earner in New Zealand. The familiar cultivar Actinidia deliciosa 'Hayward' was developed by Hayward Wright in Avondale around 1924.
The area planted in vines peaked in 1988 with a total of 18,905 hectares (46,720 acres). After a reduction in the planted area it increased to 13,250 hectares (32,700 acres) by 2007.[1]
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Kiwifruit was originally known by its Chinese name, yáng táo (sunny peach) or Mihou Tao (Macaque peach).[2] After it was introduced to New Zealand by Isabel Fraser,[3] people in New Zealand thought it had a gooseberry flavour and began to call it the Chinese gooseberry, although it is not related to the Grossulariaceae (gooseberry) family.
New Zealand exported the fruit to the United States in the 1950s. Among the exporters was the prominent produce company Turners and Growers, who were calling the berries melonettes, because the name Chinese gooseberry had political connotations due to the Cold War, and to further distinguish it from real gooseberries, which are prone to a fungus called anthracnose. An American importer, Norman Sondag of San Francisco, complained that melonettes was as bad as Chinese gooseberry because melons and berries were both subject to high import tariffs, and instead asked for a short Maori name that quickly connoted New Zealand.[2] In June 1959, during a meeting of Turners and Growers management in Auckland, Jack Turner suggested the name kiwifruit which was adopted and later became the industry-wide name.[4] In the 1960s and 1970s, Frieda Caplan, founder of Los Angeles-based Frieda's Finest (aka Frieda's Inc./Frieda's Specialty Produce) played a key role in popularising kiwifruit in the United States, convincing supermarket produce managers to carry the odd-looking fruit.[5]
Yet, kiwifruit was not in widespread distribution in the United States until the early '80s. The New Zealand Kiwifruit authority hired a San Francisco marketing research firm Elrick & Lavidge to test market the fruit in San Francisco and Boston. At that time fewer than 5% of household food shoppers had ever even heard of Kiwifruit. Under E&L Vice-President Brad R. Woolsey test markets were set up to measure awareness, trial, image, perceptions of how to eat and in what situations. In addition, various point of sale informational and educational elements were tested. It was after this research, positioning and strategy development phase that Kiwifruit became nationally distributed during the fall and winter months when fresh fruit selection in supermarkets was minimal. The San Francisco New Zealand Consulate was also heavily involved in the planning of this major endeavour.
Just prior to this research and strategy development, the Kiwifruit Authority hired Jan Bilton to write the first Kiwifruit cookbook published in 1981 by Irvine Holt in Auckland. Recipes were primarily salads, drinks, desserts and garnishments. Many of the recipes and usage suggestions from this book were used in designing much of the test market informational and point of sale elements.
Most New Zealand kiwifruits are now marketed under the brand-name label Zespri which is trademarked by a marketing company domiciled in New Zealand, ZESPRI International.[6] The branding move also served to distinguish New Zealand kiwifruit from fruit produced by other countries who could cash in on the "Kiwi" name, as it was not trademarked. ZESPRI has a monopoly on exporting outside Australasia, i.e. is a monopsony. This has been (unsuccessfully) challenged in court.
In November 2010 plant symptoms were discovered that suggested that PSA or "Pseudomonas syringae actinidiae" a variant of the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae were present in a Bay of Plenty kiwifruit orchard in the North Island.[7] Provisions of the Biosecurity Act 1993 have been used to limit its spread. These measures were continued in 2011, but were largely unsuccessful with most orchards in the Bay of Planty displaying some level of infection by November 2011. Some of the attacks in the Bay of Plenty were by the virulent strain PSA-V. The disease is worldwide, with serious attacks in Italy and France also in 2011.[8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
The kiwifruit vine has become an invasive plant species in the Bay of Plenty Region due initially to the dumping of fruit next to bush remnants.[13] The Department of Conservation, responsible for protecting public land, classify Actinidia deliciosa as an environmental weed.[14]