New Zealand’s 2021 kiwifruit harvest has kicked off with the first commercial crop being picked this morning in Gisborne and more kiwifruit to be picked across New Zealand over the coming days.

The 2021 season is forecast to be another record-breaking year with more kiwifruit produced than ever before, overtaking last year’s record of 157 million trays of export Green and Gold. On average, each tray has around 30 pieces of kiwifruit.

The Gold variety is usually picked first, followed by Green kiwifruit in late March. Harvest peaks in mid-April and runs through until June.

In addition to the Green and Gold kiwifruit, consumers can look forward to Zespri’s sweet, berry-tinged tasting Red kiwifruit which will also be picked for supermarket shelves in New Zealand and some overseas markets this year.

New Zealand has some 2,800 growers who produce kiwifruit across 13,000 hectares of orchards between Kerikeri in the north and Motueka in the south.

For your Fruit Processing requirements, ZTI's Citrus & Kiwi Peeler is a fully-automatic peeler, corer, and 'top and tailer'. The machine is suitable for processing oranges, kiwi fruit, apple and grapefruit. The peeling thickness can be adjusted to obtain the maximum yield.