Te Puke firm to target overseas export markets

A Te Puke kiwifruit processing company which started as a response to Psa is looking to export markets to escape domestic limitations.

Vitaminkiwi was the brainchild of Te Puke kiwifruit growers Mike Edwards and Murray McBride and Tauranga businessman Ian Chitty.

Their idea to encapsulate the health benefits of kiwifruit was born as a response to the threat Psa posed to their livelihoods and the wider kiwifruit industry.

The men wanted to add value to the tonnes of fruit deemed not suitable for export each year and after a lot of research found a New Zealand manufacturer able to extract some of the best qualities of the kiwifruit and convert them into a powder form.

The encapsulated powder carries concentrated levels of digestive enzymes, soluble fibres and pre-biotic antioxidants, all of which aid digestion.

Mr Edwards, who had suffered from irritable bowel syndrome for decades, started taking the capsules last year and found he no longer had problems eating meat and dairy products. Use of the capsules also cleared up the tinnitus he had been suffering for years.

Other users of the product have experienced similar affects, Mr Edwards said.

The future was looking bright for Vitaminkiwi but two weeks before they launched their product last year, a patent lodged by another New Zealand company managed to lay claim to all the intellectual properties around the use of kiwifruit extracts or powders for digestive health - essentially blocking Vitaminkiwi from promoting its main benefit in New Zealand. The patent is held by Vital Foods, an Auckland company which manufactures and sells a product called Phloe Bowel Health.

Mr Edwards said the processes for making Phloe and Vitaminkiwi were different, however Vital Foods' patent stopped him from promoting the digestive benefits of his product in New Zealand.

However, overseas markets were a different story and Vitaminkiwi was looking to establish itself in Asian countries such as China and Taiwan.

Vital Foods had tried to file a similar patent in the United States but had been unsuccessful, meaning Vitaminkiwi was able to promote itself as a digestive aid in that market, Mr Edwards said.

Vitaminkiwi has been selling its products online, as well as at a handful of retail outlets such as Kiwi360 and Blacketts Pharmacy in Te Puke.

"It's fair to say we're pretty small and we're not yet a significant value add to the industry yet," Mr Edwards said.

"But the value add to the kiwifruit is significant because when you think about it we're selling a bottle of 60 capsules for $40 whereas that was stuff that was going to be thrown out to the cows."

Consumers in other countries did not have access to kiwifruit year round and the cost of fresh fruit was often more expensive than the capsules, he said.