The PIQA Red Pear was developed in collaboration with the Bioeconomy Science Institute, being bred to stay crisp and maintain eating quality for far longer than traditional pears.
The PIQA Red Pear was developed in collaboration with the Bioeconomy Science Institute, being bred to stay crisp and maintain eating quality for far longer than traditional pears.
New Zealand growers are celebrating a record harvest of a new pear variety, which is fetching $7 per fruit in international markets and turning heads in the global industry.
Havelock North orchard owner Nick Bednarek and his family were early adopters of the variety.
Bednarek said they planted the variety,which has a tropical flavour that pairs well with cheese, as they could see a future in it.
“We looked at is an opportunity to reinvent the pear.
“We would rather be early to something exciting than be late to something safe.”
The PIQA Red Pear was developed in collaboration with the Bioeconomy Science Institute over two decades, with the premium pear bred to stay crisp and maintain eating quality for far longer than traditional pears.
The variety combines the shape of a European pear with striking red skin and the crisp, sweet flesh more commonly associated with Asian pears.
It was first commercially planted in 2015 and there are now around 180,000 PIQA trees in New Zealand, grown mostly in the Tasman, Hawke’s Bay and Central Otago regions.
The 2026 season is a watershed for the variety, with 1.6 million kilograms expected to have been harvested.
Nick Bednarek, with daughter Florence Bednarek, checking on their PIQA Red Pears at the Havelock North orchard.
Bednarek said their second harvest from 3ha of trees in February to late March this year had produced 24.5 tonnes of fruit.
He expected to harvest over 120 tonnes when the trees matured.
This year also marked the first time they were able to export commercially.
“All our export fruit is out of the country now, so that’s either on the last containers on the water or it’s in overseas markets, hopefully being sold.”
Chief executive of Hawke’s Bay-based Prevar, the plant variety company behind the innovation, Tony Martin, said the fruit was helping reinvent a category that had been falling by the wayside.
“We’re making pears sexy again.
“Our goal is for PIQA Red to become a global brand that’s enjoyed worldwide. We’re on our way and we’re excited for the future.”
Martin said pears account for just 3% of New Zealand’s apple and pear exports.
He said globally, the fruit had suffered from perceptions that it’s unreliable, mushy and uninspiring compared to apples, berries or tropical alternatives.
“Unlike traditional pears, which have a notoriously short and unpredictable window of optimal ripeness, PIQA Red is always ripe and ready to eat straight from the shelf, crisp, juicy, and reliable from the first day to the last.”
He said consumers had been falling out of love with pears.
“We want PIQA Red to be the new avocado, a fruit people get genuinely excited about.”
He said reliability made the fruit attractive to premium export markets, where it commands US$4 ($7) per fruit, a price point that would have seemed impossible for a pear a decade ago.
“The perception was that you either catch it on the right day or you end up with something soft and disappointing.
“We’ve eliminated that entirely.”
Half of this season’s harvest will be exported across Asia, the UK, Europe and, for the first time, India, as a result of the Free Trade Agreement.
The other half of the harvest is available in New Zealand supermarkets and produce stores, where it retails for around $9 a kilogram.
Michaela Gower joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke’s Bay news and loves sharing stories about farming and rural communities.
