The History of Kiwi

Kiwi, or kiwifruit, is native to China, where it was originally called mihoutao, meaning “macaque fruit” in reference to that monkey’s love for it, or Chinese gooseberry. While it grows in the wild in its native China, kiwi wasn’t widely cultivated there until quite recently and, in fact, it is New Zealand that’s best known for growing kiwi. Back in 1904, an all-girls’ school principal named Mary Isabel Fraser brought some Chinese gooseberry seeds back with her from China. She gave them to a farmer named Alexander Allison, who planted them on his farm near Whanganui. Attempts to cultivate the fruit were also made in the U.S. and the UK, but they were largely unsuccessful. The New Zealand trees, however, bore fruit in 1910. Slowly, kiwi became a successful crop in the area. In June 1959, New Zealand exporter Turners & Growers changed the name on their U.S.-bound shipment from Chinese gooseberries to kiwifruits, coining the new term. Notably, the name was selected because it was already recognized as a colloquial term for New Zealanders and because it was also the name of the nation’s national bird. Additionally, gooseberries didn’t sell well in the U.S., so the farmers didn’t want to use the name “Chinese gooseberries” on American-bound shipments. The popularity of the kiwi began to take off and by the 1970s, the term kiwifruit had completely replaced Chinese gooseberry. The change also created the popular perception that kiwis originally hailed from New Zealand. Interestingly, most commercially cultivated kiwifruit today can be traced back to Alexander Allison’s Whanganui farm, not China, and in the 1980s, the New Zealand kiwi variety was classified as its own species, Actinidia deliciosa. The furry, green kiwi is now loved all over the world and today, it is cultivated in the United States, Italy, and China as well as New Zealand.