Monster melon weighs in at 72kg

Alan Clark from Pak'nSave Hastings and Kiwa Huata from Bridge Pa Produce Ltd, with a 72kg watermelon.

Big ones, small ones, some as big as ... a person?

A watermelon on display at Pak'nSave in Hastings reached a whopping 72kg and took two fully grown men to lift into place.

It created quite a stir with shoppers who whipped out their phones to take photos and video of an unusual addition to the produce section.

"There were a lot of woos and wows and 'oh my gosh', a lot of children pointing ... I didn't expect people to be so excited about watermelons," said Kiwa Huata of Bridge Pa Produce Ltd which grew the behemoth fruit.

But the local business, which started planting melons three years ago isn't content to finish with biggest in New Zealand, they're aiming to rival the world's largest.

"This is the first time we focused on size and quality rather than quantity, we are aiming to double the current size. We would happily challenge any growers out there who think they have bigger."

While they looked spectacular and tasted just as good as smaller fruit, their appeal was slightly more limited and proved hard to market so far.

"We have others at 60kg to 65kg that are growing in this particular variety - the 72kg one is not for sale, there are others about 10kg to 20kg they will be sold first we still need to figure out how to sell the big sizes."

Family-run Bridge Pa Produce Ltd has been in the business of stone fruit here for 25 to 30 years and hope to put Hawke's Bay on the map with their record attempt.

According to the Daily Mail online, the current title holder is accountant Chris Kent who entered his 158.9kg watermelon into the Pumpkin and Fall Festival in Hamilton, Ohio in 2013.

"We grow a range of melons, red ones, orange ones in total 20 ranges ... we want tourists coming to Hawke's Bay and we want them to think produce first."