Kiwifruit industry in New Zealand Kiwifruit industry in New Zealand Kiwifruit or kiwi is a major horticultural export earner for New Zealand. New Zealand developed the first commercially viable kiwifruit and developed export markets, creating the demand for the fruit that exists today. Today New Zealand is the third largest kiwifruit producing country, next to China and Italy, and holds approximately 30% of the market share. In the 2008-2009 season the value of New Zealand kiwifruit exports was NZ$1.45 billion. Cultivation of the fuzzy kiwifruit spread from China in the early 20th century, when seeds were introduced to New Zealand by Mary Isabel Fraser, the
John Pilkington Hudson 1943, six days after an intact fuse had first been recovered. According to an obituarist: In 1944 he received a Bar to his George Medal for defusing the first V1 flying bomb or "doodlebug" to land intact. The nature of his war work remained unknown to friends until a Channel 4 television series on defusing was shown in 2001. After the war, Hudson found work in the government agricultural department in Wellington, on the transportability of "Actinidia deliciosa", then known as the Chinese gooseberry, now as the kiwifruit or kiwi. Seeds of the fruit had been introduced into New Zealand