Funny, fuzzy kiwifruit are now in abundance. With their green flesh and distinctive brown skin, this oddball winter fruit hits its peak when most others are tasteless and/or long gone. It’s unusual, sweet taste is like a summer smoothie; part banana, part blackberry and part melon with a tropical twist. That makes fresh kiwi an interesting alternative for cooler-weather meals and munching.
California produces more than 98 percent of the American kiwi crop, almost totally in the Central Valley. They’re harvested in October and November, so the kiwis you’ve been seeing are most likely from New Zealand and Italy, the countries from which America imports much of its kiwifruit during the off season. Fresh, American-grown kiwifruit will be available through early May. Unfortunately, though, not in the numbers the state once experienced. Due to the increased number of kiwis imported from other countries, such as China and Chile, many California kiwi farms have gone out of business. Flooding and other natural disasters have taken their toll on kiwi farms, too. Only 171 California farms – most of them small – grow kiwifruit, down from 300 a decade ago, according to the California Kiwifruit Commission.
But there’s good news for all kiwi farmers in the U.S. and abroad: The American appetite for kiwifruit continues to steadily grow. On average, we eat about a pound of kiwis annually. That’s not a lot considering they’re an affordable fruit packed with vitamins. Kiwis are a nutritional powerhouse with more vitamin C per ounce than oranges and more potassium than a banana. As a winter fruit, it’s available when little else is fresh.
Including all varieties, the state of California produced almost 11 million boxes of kiwifruit last season, which, says Nick Matteis with the Kiwifruit Commission, is a decent-size crop when compared with the long-term average. This year’s crop is expected to be on par with last year’s, so, in spite of a declining number of American kiwi farms, there will still be plenty of American-grown kiwifruit to go around.
Matteis compares kiwis to artichokes. “They look funny. You wonder, how do you eat them? Then you cut into them – and it’s pretty awesome,” he says.