“It didn’t happen because one day we did a magic cross and produced a perfect fruit. It has to build over a series of steps, so our plant breeders need large reservoirs of patience and persistence. But the prize of several billion dollars of export income for New Zealand is a large one.”

Zespri aspires to offer consumers their branded kiwifruit for 12 months of the year. The new red ripens earlier and will extend the season, as well as being quite different to current varieties. This colour was also identified as appealing to an Asian market.

In their native China, red is one of the colours produced by wild vines, but the genes for red also come mingled with those for small, soft, untransportable or tasteless fruit.

“None of them are nice. They need generations of breeding to improve them. Each plant takes 2–3 years to fruit but we follow them for up to 6, in case they’re slow starters but turn out to be amazing. When you add that up, you’re looking at 10–14 years from identifying an idea to a product.”

More than half of the red prospects were destroyed by the kiwifruit vine disease PSA in 2010. “That put us behind by several years, so we had to devote more effort to catch up. Breeding for the climate of the future is becoming a matter of urgency, because fruit size and disease response is affected by night-time temperatures in winter and spring.”

Zac says Zespri and Plant & Food Research have a close-knit partnership. Individual relationships at every level make a difference, right from the CEO and board level to business managers and scientists.

“We agree what the targets are for the next 15 years, so we require as much free information exchange as possible. That level of openness highlights the trust shared between us.”

The funding model also enables Plant & Food Research to reinvest in the programme. “Zespri provide us with a share of the royalties, which gets fed back into supporting more kiwifruit research. This benefits the wider kiwifruit industry and New Zealand’s economy. Ultimately we’re trying to create a virtuous circle that loops back and allows us to provide even more benefit.”