Jason Te Brake: Zespri CEO on their new red variety, Red80

A brand new kiwifruit is about to hit the market. 

Zespri has approved the commercialisation of a new red variety, Red80, following the success of Red19. 

The fruit has been naturally bred through Zespri’s Kiwifruit Breeding Centre in partnership with Plant & Food Research. 

CEO Jason Te Brake told Heather du Plessis-Allan Red80 has a later harvest than Red19, which extends the time RubyRed will be available for consumers. 

He says the fruit likely won’t be sold until 2028, as they’re releasing the licence to growers next year, and it will likely be a couple years after that before the first crop is available. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now it is not hard to be impressed with Zespre's
ongoing innovation eight and they've got more even to tell
you about. They're now going to start selling a new
type of red Kiwi fruit to capitalize on the success
of the existing one. And Jason to Break is the
CEO of Zespri and with us morning.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Jason, good morning, how are you.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
I'm very well, thank you. Now, it sounds like the
difference with the Red eighty, which is the new one,
is that it harvests later than the Red nineteen, so
you can extend the selling window. Is that basically it?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, that's right. I mean, so we're seeing your harvest later,
so we get a longer time that we've got product
available for our consumers in the market. Also, it's got
a larger sized profile, so it's a bigger piece of
fruit as well, which our consumers are asking for. So
there's some benefits of it, and it supports our existing
red category as well.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Why is it that the red doesn't keep very long?
Which is really the problem you're trying to solve.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
It's just a natural part of the throat, you know.
It's a short shelf life product, similar to what we
have with berries. But ultimately what we're looking at is
how through either breeding or so new innovation, we can
make sure we get a longer period where that fruits
in front of our consumers.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
And so when do you expect this is going to
hit the market.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
We will release license to growers through the course of
next year and it's likely to be another couple of
years after that, so you're talking about twenty twenty eight
before we have our first crop available to complement our
existing red variety.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Now, when listen, Jason, I have never ever seen a
red variety on the supermarket sheldon And in this country,
and it is entirely possible. It's just where I'm shopping.
But is it ever going to become and if it is,
when is it going to become kind of a normal
thing in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, we do sell it in New Zealand, and actually
a reasonable amount of fruit gets sold in New Zealand
for that as a short product. So you're basically looking
around that late February, early March through the sort of
the beginning of May. It's quite popular so often it
gets picked up pretty quickly and taken home. So look,
we're trying to grow more volume and it's part of

(01:59):
this decision as well as to have more volume come on,
so we've got more fruit available for consumers in New Zealand,
but also around the world.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Jason Glenn's been complaining he can't find actually any kiwi
fruit at the moment. What's going on.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
It's one of these things with a perishable product. Eventually
it runs out of time, so we harvest in March.
That fruit usually last talk about November December, and then
we have to wait till the beginning of the next
season in March again. So there is a small period
of time here where we just don't have fruit available
because it's out of season.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
What do we replace it with? Jason, I mean, it's
the thing that helps you with your mood, it's the
thing that helps you with your poo, it's the thing
that helps you with your sleep. So is there anything else?
What do you replace it with?

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Well, so what we're doing is actually looking how we
try and extend that for longer. So we are looking
at how we can breed fruit that will lasts longer.
We're looking at how we can have innovation that will
allow us to store that fruit for longer. We're trying
to tackle this problem for people around the world is actually,
how do we get Kiwi fruit available every single day
of the year. So we're working on that and that's

(03:03):
also where we're growing offshore as well to try and
help our consumers around the world.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, brilliantly, really please to hear it, Jason, look after yourself.
Have a good day. That's Jason to break the zespri
Ceo loving zespri at the moment. For more from the
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