Kiwifruit: South Africa's golden opportunity

After the failure of local green kiwifruit production in the 1980s, a new group of farmers is hopeful that golden kiwis will become a South African success story. One such producer, Peter Nicholson, spoke to Susan Marais about the sector and its ambitions.

- Susan Marais

FAST FACTS

Golden kiwis are gaining popularity amongst consumers, who find this variety tastier than its green counterpart.

Latitude favours South African kiwi farmers. The country comes into production before its main rivals and can supply the European market counter-seasonally.

Local golden kiwi farmers believe that new varieties and teamwork by various role players in the industry will lead to success.

If there is one ‘Made in China’ product that is exciting consumers the world over, it’s Chinese gooseberries, also known as kiwifruit. But perhaps it’s more accurate to say that the fruit originated in that country. While China may be the biggest producer of the fruit, it has never had much success in penetrating Western markets such as Europe. Instead, that honour belongs to New Zealand, the country that rebranded Chinese gooseberries as ‘kiwifruit’. In the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, kiwis were traded around the globe to the value of US$3,5 billion (around R54 billion), according to the International Trade Administration Commission (see Graph 1). The volume of kiwifruit imported worldwide totalled 1,5 million tons, and wholesale kiwis sold at an average of US$2,38/kg (R37/kg).

Speaking at a webinar hosted by Beanstalk Global last October, Louw Pienaar, senior analyst at the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP), said: “The compound annual growth rate of golden kiwis [Actinidia chinensis] over time shows a definite upward curve.”

Over the past five years, the global value of kiwis has increased by 8%; while the volume increased by only 0,7%, the price grew by 7,3%.