Red is the "glimmer on the horizon" of what a new kiwifruit category could be

A new red kiwifruit being sold in some supermarkets during the next five weeks is the frontrunner in Zespri's search for a new category of fruit.

About 30,000 trays of the Zespri Red variety, grown on New Zealand orchards, will be sold during the limited release.

The red fruit had a sweet taste, similar to the SunGold variety, with a "berry twist", Zespri cultivar innovation manager Bryan Parkes said.

The "vibrant" red flesh came from a unique and naturally occurring pigment, called anthocyanin, within the fruit.

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The red kiwifruit trial was causing plenty of excitement on social media, Parkes said. "We have to eventually cut through that excitement because we're looking for a long term product."

TOM LEE/STUFF "This is a trial. If this one doesn't work, which it may not, we have other candidates coming through the pipeline looking promising as well," sats Zespri cultivar innovation manager Bryan Parkes.

The supermarket price of the red kiwifruit was up to retailers, but indications so far were they were selling for around $7 per kg.

Zespri and Plant & Food Research started developing a red kiwifruit in 2000, but the first generation was wiped out by the Psa disease, Parkes said. So a second generation that was tolerant to the disease had to be developed.

Much of the planned growth of the industry was being driven by plants in the ground now - or being planted in the next couple of years - that would be coming on stream by 2025.

"SunGold is our superstar of the moment from a cashflow perspective, then eventually SunGold will reach its commercial potential," Parkes said.

ZESPRI Zespri is trialling a new red kiwifruit, with a "berry twist", in a five-week limited release to supermarkets.

While SunGold - a variety or cultivar within the Gold category - was at the heart of the growth planned to 2025, in the long term there was no reason why the Red category couldn't be as big as Gold or Green.

Red was the "glimmer on the horizon" of what a new kiwifruit category could be. It provided a different "eating experience" - including flavour, texture and juiciness - from Gold, which was in turn different to Green.

Zespri Red was a brand name that would become associated with a particular cultivar. The red variety being trialled was one cultivar, and there were another 30 at earlier stages of development.

"This is a trial. If this one doesn't work, which it may not, we have other candidates coming through the pipeline looking promising as well," Parkes said.

"The trial is being done at quite a scale. That means we're going to get a robust answer about how it performs, but we don't know how it's going to perform, and whether there are things we need to improve." So Zespri couldn't make any promises about a timeline for a red variety becoming available.

Zespri Red ripened faster, specially at ambient temperatures, plateaued at a lower firmness and was good eating when softer. It should be kept refrigerated, Parkes said.

The new fruit was developed in a partnership between Zespri and Plant & Food Research, and naturally bred from cultivars within the Zespri SunGold kiwifruit family.

Results in 2017/18 show why developing a new category is so important for Zespri's longer term growth. That year, volume of the Green category sold fell 23 per cent from the previous year's record to 64 million. At the same time the Gold category was up 9 per cent to 52 million trays sold.

TOM LEE/FAIRFAX NZ Zespri and Plant & Food grow dozens of kiwifruit varieties at their joint research farm, including wild kiwifruit seen here on the left and newer red, green and gold cultivars.

The orchard gate return per hectare was up 12 per cent for Green to $59,981, while for Gold it rose 16 per cent to $114,345. Zespri global kiwifruit sales were up 6 per cent to $2.39 billion. The company's goal is to increase global kiwifruit sales revenue to $4.5 billion by 2025.

In the 2017/18 review, Zespri chief executive Dan Mathieson described the SunGold variety as a "game-changing product". SunGold was expected to drive growth and was likely to overtake Green in its share ot the Zespri portfolio in 2018/19.

The company was committed to innovation to develop new game-changing kiwifruit, including green, red and novel varieties, Mathieson said.

SUPPLIED SunGold is the kiwifruit industry's "game-changing" product for now. It's hoped a red variety might be able to take on that role in future.

The Gold category overtaking Green was "quite a changing of the guard", Parkes said. "Green has been the platform of the entire industry but things are evolving."

The review said Zespri's new cultivar development programme was its largest investment. The world's largest kiwifruit breeding programme, in partnership with Plant & Food Research, aimed to develop a portfolio of products.

During 2017/18 more than 100,000 seedlings were evaluated, and more than 240 promising varieties were in stage 2 trials around the country.

"We progressed two new red varieties into pre-commercial trials. New cultivar development is a long process and we aim to accelerate the pace at which new varieties can be developed," the review said.