This Kiwifruit Isn't From New Zealand at All. It's Chinese, and This Is How It Got Hijacked
The kiwifruit may be New Zealand’s defining agricultural product, generating a handsome $1.05 billion in exports for the country in 2015, according to datafrom the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But how the South Pacific nation came to claim the exotic, fuzzy fruit with soft, green flesh and a unique taste is a story that combines considerable luck and a stroke of marketing genius.
猕猴桃
The erstwhile Chinese gooseberry, as its archaic English name suggests, finds its root a hemisphere away in China. Its original name in Chinese, mihoutao — “macaque fruit” — refers to the monkeys’ love for it, according to the 16th century Chinese medicine encyclopedia, the Compendium of Materia Medica.
The kiwifruit’s status as a transplant might not come as a surprise for many readers. After all, the story of one of the world’s greatest marketing and botanical hijacks has been vaguely circulating for decades, from a New YorkTimes item about trade in New Zealand over 30 years ago to a TIME column about branding and psychology in 2010.
The kiwifruit may be New Zealand’s defining agricultural product, generating a handsome $1.05 billion in exports for the country in 2015, according to datafrom the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But how the South Pacific nation came to claim the exotic, fuzzy fruit with soft, green flesh and a unique taste is a story that combines considerable luck and a stroke of marketing genius.
猕猴桃
The erstwhile Chinese gooseberry, as its archaic English name suggests, finds its root a hemisphere away in China. Its original name in Chinese, mihoutao — “macaque fruit” — refers to the monkeys’ love for it, according to the 16th century Chinese medicine encyclopedia, the Compendium of Materia Medica.
The kiwifruit’s status as a transplant might not come as a surprise for many readers. After all, the story of one of the world’s greatest marketing and botanical hijacks has been vaguely circulating for decades, from a New YorkTimes item about trade in New Zealand over 30 years ago to a TIME column about branding and psychology in 2010.
