Lovers of Kiwi apples feel the crunch

The dearth of apples at Auckland fruit shops has been evident over the past two weeks. Picture / Dean Purcell

Lack of local fruit in shops blamed on summer’s slow start

A slow start to summer has led to a national shortage of New Zealand-grown apples, with some supermarkets able to offer only fruit imported from the United States.

The dearth of new-season apples has led to empty shelves in some fresh produce departments and seen a popular drinks maker switch to apple concentrate.

A representative of Pipfruit New Zealand, the organisation that supports New Zealand's apple and pear growers, said this year's apple harvest was between one and two weeks behind schedule.

Gary Jones said there was a natural variation of harvest times every year and the delay was nothing out of the ordinary.

"It's to do with temperatures ... so Hawkes Bay is 10 to 14 days later than last year and Nelson is about one week later than last year."

He said the harvest in Hawkes Bay would begin in mid to late February for the larger-volume export varieties such as Royal Gala. Pacific Beauty would be available now but were not grown in large numbers because of their shorter shelf life.

He said the delay would not affect prices but the harvest could end up being "compact and intense", meaning a normal number of apples would be harvested over a shorter period.

A lack of apples at Auckland fruit shops and supermarkets has been evident over the past two weeks, with at least five different stores offering slim pickings in the apple aisle.

At Countdown Metro on Auckland's Victoria St yesterday, only one variety of the fruit, imported from the US, was available in store.

A company spokeswoman blamed the shortage on a cold, wet spring combined with a few hail events.

"We're currently transitioning from overseas supply of apples to the new-season local apples, so customers may have seen fewer apples on shelf over the last week because of the late season.

"We're expecting more apples to come in over this week and next.

"In the meantime, we're managing the supply across all stores as much as possible."

At New World's Queen St supermarket, one variety of New Zealand apple was available alongside several imported varieties.

A spokeswoman for Foodstuffs, Katherine Klouwens, said the lack of apples was due to an unusually wet spring and December.

"There has been a slight delay in the delivery of pip and stone fruit.

"However, Foodstuffs can confirm that all our new-season apples have arrived from today [yesterday] in our New World and Pak'n Save stores, launching with Royal Gala this week and Sweet Tango apples following soon," Ms Klouwens said.

It was not only Kiwis who loved to bite into a crunchy, new-season apple that were affected by the delay, however.

Frucor brand Simply Squeezed has had to use apple concentrate in a few of its Simply Squeezed Super Juice drinks, with a label on bottles saying use of concentrate from Hawkes Bay apples was due to a "seasonal shortage of apples to press".

A spokeswoman for Simply Squeezed said two weeks of production had been affected.

A new apple supplier had now been sourced and the juice was being produced from fresh apples again.

New Zealand apple harvest times
VarietyHarvest time
• Pacific Beauty / early February
• Royal Gala / mid-February-March
• Jazzearly / March-early April
• Pacific Queen / mid-March-mid-April
• Red Delicious / mid-March-mid-April
• Braeburn / late March-April
• Fujilate / March-April
• Pacific Rose / late March-April
• Pink Lady / April
• Granny Smith / April and early May