Kiwifruit has been growing in New Zealand for over 100 years!

Way back when my great great grandma was a little girl, a woman called Isabel Fraser bought some special black seeds back from China. She gave these seeds to Alexander Allison and he grew the first New Zealand kiwifruit! Image of seeds

Hayward Wright grew a new variety of kiwifruit, called Hayward. This is the bright green kiwifruit in the supermarkets that tastes really yummy! Image of a Kiwi

Gary the Grower and his friends sent the first kiwifruit to England and the rest of the world. At first they called the fruit ‘Yang Tao’ or ‘Chinese Gooseberry’. But they decided to change this to ‘kiwifruit’ so everyone knew where the fruit came from.

Because everyone liked kiwifruit so much, other countries started to grow them like Italy, France, Chile, Japan, South Korea, Greece and Spain. Globe

ZESPRI® Kiwifruit was born! Zespri logo

Sandra the Scientist and all her friends are working extra hard to make sure our kiwifruit tastes delicious. They are even growing kiwifruit in different colours! What colour would you chose? I think the perfect kiwifruit would be yellow and black, just like me! Image of Sandra

The History of ZESPRI Kiwifruit

Kiwifruit has been growing in New Zealand for over 100 years!