Learning About Zespri RubyRed Kiwi

I learned two things from Kat & Satoshi’s April 6, 2026 post on Our Adventures in Japan (see the first). The post featured four photos. The last of four photos shows slices of yellow-orange-red kiki on a plate (see their kiwi photo). Granting that I am not a big kiwi person, every kiwi I have seen has been green. Through Wikipedia, I identified Kat & Satoshi’s red kiwi as the Zespri RubyRed variety. Specialty Produce’s page on the RubyRed kiwi provides the history of the fruit:

Between 2005 to 2007, a variety named Zes006 was crossed with CK51_09 at the Te Puke Research Center in New Zealand, and this cross yielded fruits in 2009 with pigmented flesh, flavor, and overall visual appeal. The new variety was further analyzed and tested for several years, labeled as Zes008, and it was found to have some resistance to Psa-V, making it a suitable cultivar for commercial production. In 2019 and 2020, Zes008 was soft-launched in select markets in New Zealand, Singapore, and Japan under the name Zespri Red™. The variety saw success in these test markets, and after consumer feedback, the fruit’s marketing name was changed to Zespri RubyRed™ in 2022. Today Zespri RubyRed™ kiwifruits are grown in New Zealand and are exported to Japan, China, and Singapore.

Japan is one of the few places where the Zespri RubyRed kiwi is sold. I will have to try one if I ever see them here in Brooklyn.

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