I would be happy to pick this fruit up and ferment it into usable wine, ethanol or bio-fuel - what is the address please ?

Think I just had a healthy fruit drink which included 5% kiwifruit puree. Can we add value/health benefits to other products with the kiwifruit? Get creative!!!

To DA 32# What a pompus ass you are!! Kiwifruit is a luxury item where the hell do YOU get off being so condesending there are plenty of well deserving charities,hospitals,old folks homes, & schools that could have benefitted from these kiwifruit You made me sooo angry I just had to respond

I can appreciate the concern over protecting export markets and avoiding the commodity trap of competing on price not quality, but I'd like to suggest an alternative to: "We will destroy this fruit rather than sell it to you cheaply. This is the best kiwifruit in the world and the price is the price, take it or leave it". How about "We will give this fruit away locally for free rather than sell it to you cheaply. This is the best kiwifruit in the world and the price is the price, take it or leave it". Pointing out the EU and other overseas markets destroy foodstuffs to keep prices up is hardly a way of determining right or wrong! By the way - are the fruit actually "destroyed" or are they converted to other forms of food eg by being fed to pigs or other livestock? If so, then the word "destroyed" is misleading and we should be told what actually happens.

I am not involved in kiwifruit but I do work for an export sector.

I support Zespri in this tactic. NZ kiwifruit is the best because it is produced using expensive processes such as manual thinning of fruit, careful pruning, carefully planned harvesting and tough grading standards.

Overseas buyers are not silly. If they see premium kiwifruit being given away or sold cheaply in NZ in bulk they will use this to drive export prices down. Destroying fruit sends a very clear message to overseas buyers:

"We will destroy this fruit rather than sell it to you cheaply. This is the best kiwifruit in the world and the price is the price, take it or leave it".

I applaud Zespri.

This approach stops a major NZ export from falling into the commodity trap - i.e. a race to the bottom on price. We rely on exports and need to fight hard to maintain margin and value, and therefore our wealth as a nation.

There are tonnes and tonnes of perfectly edible reject fruit available in NZ as Mr Fry said. I used to get the stuff by the tonne from a local packhouse to feed to my deer and only had to pay bulk transport costs.

And let's not kid ourselves, kiwifruit is not a dietary staple, its a luxury item. Food banks would be better off buying and distributing weet bix and cheap oranges, than transporting and storing fickle kiwifruit. Kiwifruit must be kept chilled ($$$$++++), and they have to be handled carefully so they don't pack densely which means they use a lot of transport volume (more $$$$++++).

For the same reasons kiwifruit are very unsuitable for international food relief: Relief agencies want nutritionally dense, tightly packed, easily handled robust stable food to distribute for aid. Ie they want grains and pulses not fresh fruit.

By the time kiwifruit arrived in a drought stricken remote village in Africa, they would be inedible mush crawling with flies.

I suspect they would also go through the digestive system of a malnourished person unaccustomed to fresh fruit at the speed of sound. They would be a liability.

Absolutely disgusting..... There is a higher standard than the dollar and profit... Have we still not learned the lessons of greed!!!!

What!!

Come on Zespri & Mr Fry, Plenty of foodbanks around N.Z could use this, hospitals would use it, schools to promote healthy eating, families with children to encourage healthy eating.

Why can't you give it away to these kind of places instead of dumping perfectly good fruit!!

So what you won't get any money but you will be helping the wider community in donating al the extra fruit.

Think about it.

I agree with Jason I hope this gets out to the public on a larger scale...

After reading this story I don't think I will be buying anymore kiwifruit this year and urging others to do the same.

I cant believe people are so naive?? In the EU for example.. millions of tons of apples are destroyed each year to keep the price higher than equilibrium.

This practice is common and widespread. The process is carefully thought out, and this is how the make the MOST money from their products. ECON 101 really should be made compulsory.

The message is to eat five servings of fruit or vegetables per day. This quantity would go along way to serve the whole country if offered at a reasonable price. Why should the New Zealand public only be offered the second grade fruit? What happened to commonsense?