KEY POINTS:
The price shoppers pay for fruit and vegetables must rise if growers are to survive, says Horticulture New Zealand president Andrew Fenton.
Fruit and vegetable prices rose about 3.5 per cent in the past 18 months, while growers' costs had gone up 10-15 per cent.
"I'm not saying prices need to increase that far, but we certainly need to start recognising that to produce the quality of produce that we do the costs have gone up and we need to pay more."
If producers were unable to grow profitably, it would not be long before New Zealand imported all its fruit and vegetables from lower cost producers.
"That is a despicable thought but this could be a reality during this decade if the perception of consumers is not changed from buying cheap produce to paying a fair price, as they do overseas."
Horticulture industry revenue was $5.2 billion in 2007, with about half from exports, and had a vision to hit $10 billion by 2020, he said.
Mr Fenton, who was speaking at Horticulture New Zealand's annual conference in Auckland, said people needed to shop wisely, think seasonally and buy products when they were plentiful.
When headlines talked of sky-rocketing prices it was not the grower getting the benefit.
"When the price of spinach or domestic apples is below production costs the grower receives nothing, may even get a bill, but the supply chain, including the transport, the handling, the wholesale, the [distribution centres], the retailers all have collected theirs."
In some cases 300 per cent was added to the price of products by the supply chain but the grower's business was struggling.
"The public perception currently is that the growers are getting fat. That's wrong, that's very wrong."
New Zealand should follow Ireland and Australia, where there were inquiries into pricing.
Consumer NZ research manager Belinda Allan said that although the organisation would like mandatory country of origin labelling on fruit and vegetables, supermarkets had made a commitment to voluntarily provide that information.
"I think some consumers are prepared to pay more to buy New Zealand-made."
