Kiwifruit

Lore & Background

Kiwifruit is native to central and eastern China, with the first recorded description dating to the 12th century during the Song dynasty. It was usually collected from the wild and used in folk medicine, rarely cultivated. In the early 20th century, cultivation spread to New Zealand, where the first commercial plantings took place. During World War II, British and American servicemen stationed in New Zealand consumed the fruit. In the late 20th century, countries including China and Italy began independent breeding programmes. The Wuhan Botanical Garden houses the world's largest kiwifruit gene bank.

Reader's Guide

Kiwifruit's significance lies in its transformation from a wild Chinese plant to a globally traded commodity. This rebranding, along with post-World War II exposure to servicemen, facilitated its spread to markets in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States. The fruit's legacy includes a wide range of cultivars—fuzzy green, golden, red-fleshed, and kiwiberries—and a global gene bank at the Wuhan Botanical Garden. The name 'kiwifruit' itself, though coined for marketing, has become the standard term, while myths about its origin persist.

Did You Know?

• The first recorded description of kiwifruit dates to the 12th century during the Song dynasty in China.

Ancient Roots in the Chinese Landscape

Kiwifruit's story begins far from any modern orchard. Native to central and eastern China, the woody vines of the genus Actinidia grew wild for centuries before anyone thought to cultivate them. The earliest identifiable description appears in a Tang dynasty poem by Cen Shen, depicting a mihoutao plant climbing above a well in what is now Shaanxi province. The first formal recorded description dates to the 12th century during the Song dynasty. For most of that long history, the fruit was simply gathered from the wild and consumed for its presumed benefits in folk medicine, rarely bred or planted in any deliberate way. The Chinese people knew it by many evocative names over the centuries: míhóutáo (macaque peach), húlítáo (fox peach), ténglí (vine pear), and yángtáo (sheep peach). In the Yangtze River valley, it went by yangtao. These varied local names reflect how deeply the fruit was woven into regional landscapes without ever becoming a commercial crop. It was a wild thing, a curiosity of the hills, long before the world would learn to export it.

The Name That Stuck

The fruit's English identity is a story of practicality meeting branding. Sondag argued kiwifruit, growing on vines, had no such risk. Jack Turner of Turners & Growers seized the moment, coining "kiwifruit" as a nod to the kiwi, the informal name for New Zealanders, which he felt would appeal to American servicemen who had served in the Pacific during World War II. Myths persist—some claim it references the furry brown national bird, others blame anti-Chinese sentiment—but the documented story is one of a quarantine workaround and a shrewd marketing instinct.

From Pacific Shores to Global Tables

The kiwifruit's journey from a Chinese wild vine to a global supermarket staple is a tale of wartime serendipity and deliberate industry building. Cultivation spread from China to New Zealand in the early 20th century, where the first commercial plantings took root. The Hayward variety, developed there, found its initial audience among British and American servicemen stationed in New Zealand during World War II. In the 1940s and 1950s, New Zealand built the entire agricultural infrastructure around the crop—viable cultivars, shipping, storage, and marketing. What had been a servicemen's snack became a tightly managed international commodity.

China's Modern Harvest

The country that first recorded the fruit in the 12th century did not re-engage with it commercially until the late 20th century. By the early 1980s, commercial cultivation began in earnest, initially on less than one hectare using the 'Hayward' cultivar imported from New Zealand. But China's breeders quickly moved beyond dependency. Domestically developed varieties like 'Hongyang,' a red-fleshed kiwifruit selected in Sichuan from wild-collected seedlings, 'Jinyan,' a yellow-fleshed variety, and 'Donghong' (also called Oriental Red) gained prominence.