The risk of suspect fruit being used to piggy-back on Hawke's Bay's global pipfruit reputation has moved one company into cutting-edge science to thwart the pretenders, using what are effectively horticulture's own forms of fingerprinting and DNA testing.
Leading orchardist and Bay View-based family operation Taylor Corporation has engaged Otago company Oritain to come up with the tools to prove their produce is the real thing.
Taylor managing director Kelvin Taylor has heard of artificial colouring of citrus fruit in China and other methods which could be used to pass fruit off as something it is not, but now there is technology available to prove the true origins.
"Counterfeiting and mislabelling of products is a serious concern in many of our key markets," he said.
Any attempts to label apples from other regions or countries as being from Taylor Corporation or Hawke's Bay can easily be thwarted by Oritain's technology.