Remember the first time you ate a Zespri Gold kiwi? Can you recall when that was? It can’t have been more than ten years ago, as the first golden-yellow kiwi only appeared in European shops in 2000, after 23 years of experimentation and optimisation.

The story of the yellow kiwi begins in 1977. That year some New Zealand scientists brought seeds of the Actinidia Chinensis from Beijing to the Bay of Plenty, where green kiwis had already been cultivated successfully for years. For four years seeds of wild plants from the Gulin plateau in China were also sown in the Bay of Plenty. After a long process of selection and assessment, the strongest female Actinidia Chinensis was crossed with a male plant from the Gulin plateau. It took until 1992 before this led to an end result: the Hort 16A, a full yellow fruit with sweet flesh. The Hort 16A was planted on a large scale and sold under the name Zespri Gold.

In 1998 the first Zespri Gold was exported to Japan. Two years later the first golden-yellow kiwis made the journey to Europe.