SMOOTH GOLD KIWI FRUIT TO CHALLENGE GREEN HAIRY VARIETY

The Kiwi Fruit, if you have come across it, is green and hairy - unless that is, it is not hairy and it is golden. Get ready for the new Kiwi - New Zealand's answer to rivals who have been stealing the kiwi-eating market from under their noses. The new golden hairless Kiwi has been developed by New Zealand international marketing company Zespri. Our reporter Richard Collings spoke to Guus Van der Clay, who is Zespri's regional manager for Europe, and asked him what the new fruit actually looked like. "The interesting part of this new fruit is of course the inside, and that is a difficult point for a consumer because he is looking at the outside, and the outside is still brown but a little bit less hairy than the normal kiwi fruit. But its taste is completely different - a bit of a mango taste with melon. It is quite sweet, very juicy. "There is a lot of food in the world that has a mango or a melon type taste. But what it actually has is the nutritional value that the kiwi fruit category has. So it is very high in all the nutritions, and actually the same, or even higher, in its vitamin-C content." Richard Collings asked how they managed to get it gold and was it genetically-modified? "No, it is an absolutely natural grown product. It was started roughly 15 years ago with a root stock that has been taken from China and brought to New Zealand. It is completely New Zealand-owned root stock." It is a natural grown product which has not been genetically-modified. Guus Van der Clay So how much money had they put behind this venture and how much were they putting in to promoting it?, inquired Richard Collings. "The development costs of course was high. We have a research station in New Zealand. Now for marketing a new product, particularly at a time of the year when the fruit basket is already full because we have the summer fruits from south Europe, and this one with the particular taste palate it has - with a bit of mango taste and melon, it is not easy to bring a product like that onto the market. "So what we did, was quite a lot of consumer research and that told us that the more we introduced it as a completely new food, the better our chances would be." Surely it was time to put more effort into marketing the traditional green kiwi, which was facing competition from other producing countries such as Chile and Italy. Why concentrate on a new product?, Richard Collings asked. "We are of course in competition with others. but this fruit is completely different and that is why we actually believe that, next to the green, this yellow-gold kiwi fruit can actually complement other fruits and that is the way we would like to see it on the plate." Richard Collings wondered whether they were actually doing that at the expense of the traditional green kiwi? "The total volume of the crop itself which has been planted in New Zealand, is not that large - about 15 or 20 per cent of the total crop. So it is not a product that will take over." It has been a big success in Asia so far, how did he think it would appeal to the Europeans now it was being launched in Europe?, asked Richard Collings. "We are very excited, because there are a lot of consumers who do not like the slightly sour taste of the green, and that of course is the consumer we are looking for." There are many consumers who do not like the slightly sour taste of the green kiwi - they are the consumers we are looking for. Guus Van der Clay