Writer and researcher, David McKenzie, explores the rapid rise of SunGold kiwifruit, and asks: how sustainable is this boom, really? Behind New Zealand’s “clean and green” image lies a more complex picture – one of centralised corporate control, increasing chemical use, monoculture expansion and a decline in organic production.
New Zealand gave the kiwifruit its name and accounts for nearly half of its global trade today.
Production is increasing too, with total exports roughly doubling in the past decade (from around 100 million trays in 2013-15 to over 200 million in 2025), and industry leaders are vowing to further double the supply again to key international markets within the next 10 years. At the same time, New Zealand’s kiwifruit industry prides itself on sustainability and health claims, and a major selling point for international consumers is New Zealand’s “clean and green” image.
But with production getting pushed higher and higher, the question has to be asked – how sustainable can this really be?
Monopoly, intensification, centralisation: Explaining the New Zealand kiwifruit industry
First of all, it’s worth pointing out that it’s possible to speak of the New Zealand kiwifruit industry as a single entity because, well, that’s essentially what it is.
Although there are just under 3,000 kiwifruit growers registered in New Zealand, only one company is allowed to export New Zealand kiwifruit (beyond Australasia) – that’s Zespri. Considering that 90% of New Zealand kiwifruit is exported globally, what growers are able to do is largely dictated by Zespri through the terms of their supply contracts.
Although kiwifruit is often held up for being “not as bad” as other local industries (such as dairy), in terms of GHG emissions, conventional production still relies on synthetic chemicals that significantly contribute to environmental degradation. Of particular concern is the high concentration of production: over 80% of New Zealand kiwifruit comes from the Bay of Plenty, and the majority of this is grown around the tiny town of Te Puke, the self-proclaimed “Kiwifruit Capital of the World”.
Furthermore, over that same period in which New Zealand’s total kiwifruit production has doubled, the increase in total hectares under cultivation for kiwifruit has only increased by about one-fifth (from around 12,000 in 2014-16 to just over 14,500 today). What this suggests is an ongoing intensification of the industry, extracting more production out of the land.
So, how is this being done?
Banned there, sprayed here – NZ kiwifruit’s chemical addiction
Zespri’s control over the export market essentially allows them to dictate requirements and standards for growers to meet, and flexibility within the industry is limited. This is often touted as a good thing, allowing Zespri to enforce industry-wide protocols. One example is Zespri’s range of Assurance Programmes which, according to their website, ensure “guaranteed quality” and let consumers know that “the kiwifruit in your hand is grown to the best methods available”.
But some consumers might feel a little less “assured” after taking a closer look at these assurance programmes.
In terms of spray and pest management, for example, Zespri’s ‘KiwiGreen’ orchard management system and its Crop Protection Standard are the two materials directing conventional growers. A number of sprays that growers are directed to use (including Actigard, Hydrogen Cyanamide, Kasumin, and KeyStrepto) are banned in Zespri’s largest export market, the European Union. Without the use of such sprays, however, as Zespri’s ominously entitled Community Guide to Kiwifruit Spraying Season states: “kiwifruit quality and yield production would be significantly lower than they are today”.
At this point, it is starting to become clear where the priorities of Zespri and its shareholders lie.
There are, of course, innovative growers trying to do things differently, rebuffing Zespri’s conventional spray plan and choosing to grow kiwifruit (through Zespri) organically. This typically results in lower yields but higher payments per tray of fruit.
However, if you thought that these growers might have been encouraged, supported, or held up as an example for where the industry could go, then you will be sorely disappointed.
Going backwards: The decline of organic kiwifruit in New Zealand
In 2000, around 6% of New Zealand kiwifruit was grown organically. The 25 years since then has seen mainstream awareness and demand for organic products explode. More research has shown that organic kiwifruit orchards can produce adequate returns for New Zealand kiwifruit growers while bringing benefits like long-term soil fertility, eliminating excessive synthetic nitrogen use and limiting pollution of local waterways. Despite these developments, the amount of New Zealand kiwifruit grown organically has reduced by about half: from 6% in 2000 to just over 3% today (according to Zespri’s annual reports).
For a company dedicated to “nurturing the land, our future and you”, and “one of the most advanced companies in terms of sustainability”, you might be wondering – what the heck happened here?
New threats, old response
In 2010, New Zealand’s booming kiwifruit industry was hit by the arrival of kiwifruit vine canker (also called Psa), which decimated a huge number of New Zealand’s kiwifruit vines. This was about 10 years after Zespri’s first gold (rather than green) kiwifruit variety, Hort16A, had taken the world by storm with its sweet, juicy flesh. Created through Zespri’s government-sponsored breeding programme, Hort16A was Zespri’s first success with a patented variety, and they had encouraged a massive expansion of it among growers. However, it proved particularly susceptible to Psa. The disease spread like wildfire through its emerging monocrop plantings, and the outbreak ultimately wiped the variety out completely.
In its place, however, Zespri had another patented gold variety waiting in the wings which, conveniently, proved to be more resistant to Psa than its predecessor: Zespri SunGold™.
Since then, and combined with the fact that New Zealand’s previous main variety, the classic green Hayward, is predicted to become non-viable by the end of the century due to climate change, the SunGold variety has exploded, becoming the major driver of the kiwifruit industry’s expansion. It has regularly been dubbed the saviour of the entire “golden” kiwifruit industry.
However, if this experience represented an opportunity to learn a lesson – about the risks of focusing on too narrow a range of licensed, monoculture varieties – then it seems to have been an opportunity missed.
Just over a decade on, the SunGold variety has gone from being the new kid on the block to the undisputed boss: well over two-thirds of all kiwifruit grown in New Zealand is now SunGold. Its strictly controlled licensing (along with Zespri’s newest patented breed, the RubyRed™) continues to be used as a way to encourage growers to “transition” away from growing the traditional green Hayward variety.
Taking this with a pinch of salt, though, the emergence of SunGold as the dominant kiwifruit variety is unlikely to be accidental: Zespri, remember, hold the sole right to administer licenses for growing kiwifruit (that can be sold for export) in New Zealand. And, they also own the intellectual property rights for the SunGold variety (unlike the public-domain Hayward variety).
This subtle-not-subtle development has provided Zespri with more ability to flex its corporate muscle than before – as has been seen in its very public war of words with Chinese authorities over unlicensed “kiwifruit pirates”. Zespri’s increasing control over what kiwifruit can (or can’t) be grown in New Zealand has even extended into local plant stores and home gardens.
This growing dominance of SunGold comes with another issue in terms of sustainability: it represents an even greater commitment to conventional (over organic) production.
Although more resistant to Psa than its predecessor, the higher-yielding SunGold is still typically much more susceptible to stress, disease and pests (including Psa) than the green Hayward. This makes it much harder to grow in organic conditions, which is reflected in the numbers: typically, according to Zespri, about 5% of all green kiwifruit they sell is grown organically, compared with only 2% of SunGold.
Still, some growers manage to produce high returns and high quality SunGold organically. In particular, innovative methods are being employed to avoid reliance on hydrogen cyanamide (a major barrier to organic transitions, given its boosting properties during bud break); and lessons are being taken on from organic kiwifruit growers in Italy (where many of the chemicals used in New Zealand are banned).
So, if Zespri were genuinely committed to ensuring the long-term viability and sustainability of kiwifruit production, it is these growers that they could choose to support and encourage.
But instead, as mentioned, all signs seem to be pointing in the other direction.
In fact, the marginalisation of organic kiwifruit growers by Zespri has been brought to a head relatively publicly in recent years. In 2021, the Certified Organic Kiwifruit Growers Association (COKA) made an official discrimination claim against Zespri for refusing to take any organic SunGold to sell in China (New Zealand’s biggest market for gold kiwifruit); and in 2023 Zespri announced that they would not be issuing any new licenses for organic SunGold production (something they doubled down on in their Five-Year Plan from December last year). At the same time, Zespri promised at least 350-500 new hectares of conventional SunGold licences to be released every year until 2030.
In other words: it seems that Zespri is actively interested in phasing out not only the classic green Hayward variety, but organic kiwifruit production in general.
Combined with the toxic chemical use of conventional systems, and the ongoing concentration of the industry not only in one region but in one company (who already rely on intensive refrigeration, global transportation and growing an increasing amount of fruit in other countries in active pursuit of their global 12-month shelf presence target), it seems a bit hard to be confident about the sustainability of New Zealand’s kiwifruit industry.
