Cosmo Hawke: Co-founder of Fruit Cru on their business turning ugly fruit into wine

A new use for “ugly” fruit, with two Kiwi dads turning a hobby into a business. 

Fruit Cru makes use of seconds, the ugly fruit from local orchards that doesn’t make it to export, turning it into organic wine.  

Since starting in 2021, they now produce about 10,000 bottles each year, and have signed a deal with Foodstuffs to stock their beverages in five supermarkets in the Wellington region. 

Co-founder Cosmo Hawke told Mike Hosking there’s a shortage of fruit for traditional wine, but at the same time things like cherries, apples, and feijoas were going unpicked. 

He says as far as they can tell, they’re the only ones making a beverage in this way, and it could only be done in New Zealand. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wine to the world using ugly fruit. So this is
an idea from a couple of dads created a certified
organic winery uses only seconds in ugly fruit. Didn't make
export right, So they're start in the storeage unit and
that now started to deal with food stuff is going
to be in a bunch of Wellington supermarkets. Cosmo Hawk
is the co founder of Fruit Crew Wines and as
well as Cosmo Morning.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Come on, I'm okay, you going very well.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
So this is not grapes, right, this is other fruit,
fijos and stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
We use some grape skin, but not exclusively grapes and
definitely not always always grapes. Yeah, or what do you
always pomp fruit? Right?

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Are you doing this in Wellington?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yes we are. Yeah, We've got a little warehouse down
in Tiatle, Okay.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
So you bring the fruit in from where you source
that yourself?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, low in North Island, so a Kapity Coast has
a lot of orchards around there in Hawk's Bay. We
go up as far as to Pookie for kiwi fruit.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Of course, did you know anything about fermenting wine, ugly fruit, bottles,
corks pop, any of that.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, we've made a bit of wine before traditional way
using just grapes in Australia and a little bit of
New Zealand as well. But then when we came to
try and source some fruit, we realized there was quite
a big shortage actually, like a lot of the vineyards
aren't really producing at the sort of levels that they
were or were intended to do. And simultaneously Nine was

(01:19):
even picking up the apples or the cherries or the
fijos because they weren't worth the labor costs to even pick.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
So you sorted that out. So are you in it
to make ugly fruit work? Are you in it to
make money for yourself? Or are you in it to
tap into a market that already exists or maybe a
market that doesn't exist? And when I try some cherry wine,
I'm thinking, oh my lord, where's it been?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Ha? All of the above, right, I would say, yeah,
it definitely isn't a market that exists at the moment.
I mean, there's we're a very big apple producer, fruit producer,
I mean outside of dairy, it's probably our biggest, biggest
the export industry, but we have a fairly small cider
industry really relative to that, I'd say globally, we're not

(02:04):
known at all the cider, but we're definitely known for apples.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
What it is that when we taste it we love it?
Or are you taking a big risk on there?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
No, The vibe is that when we taste it, we
love it. That we're trying something made in a completely
different manner to anything else currently on the planet as
far as I can tell, and that we're something that's
suitably in New Zealand. Like it hasn't been taken from
another culture, hasn't been borrowed or copied or anything. It's
literally could only be done here.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Does fruit all work the same way? Basically? It turns out.
I mean, you can use any fruit you want.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
No, definitely not. We've had trial and error. We've definitely
had a few things we've decided not to work with,
and a few things that just went amazingly from day one.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Okay, what's hot? What's good?

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Fijoa is a hot Kiwi fruits are hot. Quinces, apples, pears,
all the most common things. You know.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Here we go. God see quints not personal to see
you see? I got there? Do I have quince or person?
I've got quints? Heaven, I've got quints. I don't know
what the hell I've got, But I'm looking at the
tree and I'm thinking, who the hell is doing anything
with that?

Speaker 2 (03:09):
No one, No one is. The quints sits there. They're
too big, they're too hard to work with. No one,
no one could be bothered even picking them.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
So if I for men my quints on quids and
you reckon.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
I reckon. Yeah. There's a few tricks to it, though,
but I don't know if I want to put that
live on it.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
No, No, I don't do that. What's the what's the
alcohol content?

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Roughly they sit around seven percent.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
It's not bad. You have a couple of hours for lunch,
couldn't you?

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (03:33):
What do you charge? What's a bottle of Quint's fizz.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Sitting on the supermarket shellers at twenty two dollars for
seven to fifty mil so wine wine bottle size?

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Good? Are you quids in yet? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, I think so close close to Yeah, you go.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Well, it's a great story. I love it. I love
a good, locally made story. Cosmo, well done, Cosmo Hawk,
who's the co founder of fruit Crew. You'll be able
to see some of that at a supermarket near you.
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