Obituary: Jack Turner

Jack Turner, MBE. Business leader. Died aged 89.

John (Jack) Penman Turner, credited with suggesting that the humble chinese gooseberry should be called the kiwifruit, was a pillar of this country's horticultural industry over many years.

As a managing director and later chairman of Turners and Growers, he suggested the name change to promote marketing in the United States. He said the Americans at that time regarded gooseberries as fruit grown on a bush close to the ground, which might harbour anthrax.

Some 20 years later, in 1982, the Turner family (including Jack's father, the late Sir Harvey Turner) were celebrating the anniversary of the name change. And the export of 1 million trays of kiwifruit, achieved in the 1979 season.

Jack Turner could recall a time when 15 Turners worked for the firm. So it was hardly surprising that he became widely known in the industry as "Mr Jack".

He was an unassuming, selfless man with many business and charitable interests. Several steady threads ran through his life: fruit and produce, his family, the Mt Albert home in which he lived for most of his almost 90 years, and the Mt Albert Baptist Church, including being one-time choirmaster and superintendent of the Sunday school.

But, like his father, he led a company that moved with the times and actively looked for export opportunities.

Hearing on the radio one morning of a shortage of daffodils for the investiture of the Prince of Wales, Jack Turner organised rapid airfreight to address the problem, at the same time giving Turner and Growers' presence abroad a boost.

But his feet were always firmly on the ground. He warned several times in the early 1980s that people planting other horticultural crops should not expect to emulate the (then) success of kiwifruit.

He said it was most doubtful that there would be "in our lifetime" another success story to equal kiwifruit.

"And no-one can foresee the future of kiwifruit, which will soon be available in huge quantities."

He added that for growers who had recently bought land at "extremely inflated prices and who were faced with ever-rising costs, the future is certainly unknown".

He was right. Heavy production and overseas competition saw many later generation kiwifruit orchardists rip out vines.

Jack Turner was the eldest grandson of Edward Turner, who settled at Huia, near Auckland, in 1885, and the eldest son of Sir Harvey and Lady Ethel Turner's family of five. He joined the family firm in 1932 after schooling at Mt Albert Grammar.

"It was the Depression," he said. "There wasn't much else to do anyway."

After joining the Army early in World War II he was sent to Egypt with the 27th Machine Gun Battalion.

It then went to Greece and after that campaign the New Zealanders withdrew to Crete. Jack was at Maleme airport in May 1941 when it was attacked by the Germans. He was captured after going back to help a wounded comrade.

He finished up at Lamsdorf prison camp, spending three years working in a German sugar beet factory. He escaped once with a companion, but his freedom only lasted three days.

Later he was in the long, forced march from Lamsdorf westwards away from the advancing Russians to liberation just south of Hanover. During the the march he plied his mates with nettle soup and snails he found and cooked along the way.

Jack Turner, who returned to the family firm in 1945 and married Elaine Lawry in 1948, was proud of the way the family worked together: a "God-fearing family" that was "loyal to Auckland, loyal to industry and loyal to each other".

In 1987, while talking to a Herald reporter at the old Auckland inner city markets, he noticed a man outside his window roping down a load of cauliflowers.

"I knew his father," he said. "They were growers with a road stall. Now they have only the stall and buy their produce here. Our Chinese customers are a very important part of our business."

Turners and Growers merged with ENZA Ltd in 2003.

Mourners at Jack Turner's funeral service included staff, and suppliers and customers from many walks of life. He is survived by his wife, three daughters, two sons and 23 grandchildren.