Zespri says it is hopeful a highly promising red-fleshed fruit will be on the market in five to six years. Expand

Zespri says it is hopeful a highly promising red-fleshed fruit will be on the market in five to six years.

New Zealand kiwifruit sales could be boosted by between $300 million and $1 billion a year within a decade thanks to a big investment venture announced by marketer Zespri and the Government.

Research Science and Technology Minister Wayne Mapp said $35.7 million would be invested over the next seven years in a joint research and development programme by Zespri, the world's leading kiwifruit marketer, and the Crown Research Institute Plant and Food Research.

The Foundation for Research Science and Technology would contribute $15.2 million and Zespri $20.5 million. The funds are to accelerate and upscale New Zealand's kiwifruit breeding programme. The boost will make it the world's biggest and most significant new kiwifruit varieties R&D project.

Zespri chief executive Lain Jager said a number of new cultivars would be brought to market and it was "realistic" to expect that one outstanding cultivar would be commercialised with forecast sales of $300 million a year.

Plant and Food Research chief operating officer Bruce Campbell told the Business Herald his institute was planning for at least four "outstanding" cultivars to be commercialised.

"I think the numbers will be something like $1 billion of sales by 2021."

Kiwifruit is New Zealand's biggest horticulture export, accounting for 45 per cent of all horticulture exports and 66 per cent of fresh fruit exports. The industry's economic value is estimated at $1.45 billion a year. Zespri expects the volume and value of the industry to at least double over the next 10 years.

But judging by commercialisation of New Zealand's "gold" kiwifruit, the process of getting exciting new cultivars to market can be long and financially painful.

Gold fruit sales of 20 million trays earned $450 million last financial year, with 30 million trays expected to be sold annually within three years and 50 million within seven. But Jager cautions that successful commercialisation of this breed took 10 years, and that the country's 2700 growers, who bear most of the risk and cost of new cultivar development, had to absorb marketing costs of up to $1.70 a tray in the early years.

Plant and Food's Campbell said conventional breeding programmes could take 25 years. The new consortium funds would shrink this to 10 years, perhaps less, and increase by eight-fold the amount of cultivar material in the research programme.

"We'll have a bigger team, a bigger area of land, more plants ... as well as creating some completely new ways of assessing quality. Because our target is the premium end of the market we want to build a whole set of high-quality attributes the consumer is looking for such as taste, appearance, storability, health benefits, as wellas producing high yields for growers and reducing inputs of chemicals."