385g monster sets new feijoa record

Heather Smith, Havelock North, is Hawke's Bay's new recordholder, with a feijoa weighing 385 grams. Photo / Paul Taylor

A gigantic Havelock North-grown feijoa has smashed the previous recordholders off the winner's podium.

Heather Smith arrived at Hawke's Bay Today's Hastings newsroom yesterday with a bounty of the behemoth fruit - the heaviest weighing 385 grams - a new Hawke's Bay record.

That dwarfs the previous record of 316 grams.

Ms Smith, originally from the United States, farms beef and sheep in Matangi Rd, and also grows feijoas commercially, with 1900 feijoa trees in total.

Her crop will find its way into juices made by the likes of Simply Squeezed.

"I came here about 18 years ago, and had never heard of a feijoa before," she said. "Then I tried one and thought, 'Yeah, I've got to plant those'."

She said the fruit was just starting to catch on in her home country.

"We need to market them overseas - there's a big future exporting them to America."

The earlier record was held by Havelock North's Roger Corbett and his partner Julie. Hawke's Bay Today's story last week about the mammoth fruit went viral on social media, and was viewed almost 120,000 times on Facebook. The season for feijoas generally runs from March to late June.