Actinidia deliciosa Zealand, around 1924. This is the most widely grown cultivar in the world. Chinese gooseberry was initially grown in domestic gardens, but commercial planting began in the 1940s. In 1959, Turners and Growers named it kiwifruit, after New Zealand's national bird, the kiwi—brown and furry. , Italy was the leading producer of kiwifruit in the world, followed by New Zealand, Chile, France, Greece, Japan, and the United States. Kiwifruit is still produced in China, but China has never made it to the top 10 list of kiwifruit-producing countries. In China, it is grown mainly in the mountainous area upstream of
Kiwifruit industry in New Zealand In 1952, MacLoughlin approached the New Zealand Fruit Federation who agreed to facilitate the shipping and marketing of the fruit to United States markets, this was New Zealand’s first export of Chinese gooseberries. Due to pioneering research into the transportability of the fruit by John Pilkington Hudson and others at the agriculture department in Wellington, this was the first international export of the kiwifruit. As the local popularity of this fruit increased, New Zealanders discarded the local Chinese name for the fruit ("yáng táo") in favor of the name "Chinese gooseberry". Among the exporters was the prominent produce company Turners