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This study aims to investigate the relationship between consumer awareness of Zespri International Limited (Zespri™) and its sales promotion in Japan and the recent expansion of New Zealand (NZ) kiwifruit imported into Japan.

Tweets mentioning Zespri™ were utilised as a proxy of such awareness. They were first summarised using two text-mining techniques: tf-idf scoring and a co-occurrence network graph. Afterwards, the authors estimated a tri-variate vector autoregression (VAR) model consisting of the net imports of NZ kiwifruit in Japan, unit import price and number of tweets. Additionally, the occurrence frequency of tweets with “Kiwi Brothers”, promotional characters for Zespri™’s sales, was added to the model, and a tetra-variate VAR model was estimated. Finally, Granger-causality tests, an estimation of the impulse response function and forecast error variance decomposition was conducted.

All these variables were found to Granger-cause each other. Furthermore, a shock in the document frequency of “Kiwi Brothers” significantly affected Japan’s kiwifruit imports from NZ, explaining approximately 20% of future imports. Zespri™’s distinctive sales promotion was, thus, found to contribute in part to the recent increase in NZ’s kiwifruit export to Japan.

This paper is the first to apply text-regression methodology to food consumption research; it contributes to food consumption research by proposing a practical way to combine tweets with outcome variables using a time-series analysis.

This paper aims to investigate if a Cartesian robot system for kiwifruit harvesting works more effectively and efficiently than an articulated robot system. The robot is a key component in agricultural automation. For instance, multiple robot arm system has been developed for kiwifruit harvesting recently because of the significant labor shortage issue. The industrial robots for factory automation usually have articulated configuration which is suitable for the tasks in the manufacturing and production environment. However, this articulated configuration may not fit for agricultural application due to the large outdoor environment.

The kiwifruit harvesting tasks are completed step by step so that the robot workspace covers the canopy completely. A two-arm, Cartesian kiwifruit harvesting robot system and several field experiments are developed for the investigation. The harvest cycle time of the Cartesian robot system is compared to that of an articulated robot system. The difference is analyzed based on the workspace geometries of these two robot configurations.

It is found that the kiwifruit harvesting productivity is increased by using a multiple robot system with Cartesian configuration owing to its regular workspace geometry.

An articulated robot is a common configuration for manufacturing because of its simple structure and the relatively static factory environment. Most of the agricultural robotics research studies use single articulated robot for their implementation. This paper pinpoints how the workspace of a multiple robot system affects the harvest cycle time for kiwifruit harvesting in a pergola style kiwifruit orchard.

A harvesting robot is developed as part of kiwifruit industry automation in New Zealand. This kiwifruit harvester is currently not economically viable, as it drops and damages too many kiwifruit in the harvesting task due to the positional inaccuracy of the gripper. This is due to the difficulties in measuring the exact effective dimensions of the gripper from the manipulator. The purpose of this study is to obtain the effective gripper dimensions using kinematic calibration procedures.

A setup of a constraint plate with a dial gauge is proposed to acquire the calibration data. The constraint plate is positioned above the robot. The data is obtained by using a dial gauge and a permanent marker. The effective dimensions of the gripper are used as error parameters in the calibration process. Calibration is exercised by minimizing the difference between target positions and measured positions iteratively.

The robot with the obtained effective dimensions is tested in the field. It is found that the fruit drops due to positional inaccuracy of the gripper are greatly reduced after calibration.

The kiwifruit industry in New Zealand is growing rapidly and announced plans in 2017 to double global sales by 2025. This growth will put extra pressure on the labour supply for harvesting. Furthermore, the Covid pandemic and resulting border restrictions have dramatically reduced seasonal imported labour availability. A robotic system is a potential solution to address the labour shortages for harvesting kiwifruit.

For kiwifruit harvesting, the picking envelope is well above the robot; the experimental data points obtained by placing a constraint plate above the robot are at similar positions to the target positions of kiwifruit. Using this set of data points for calibration yields a good effect of obtaining the effective dimension of the gripper, which reduces the positional inaccuracy as shown in the field test results.

The purpose of this study was to study the effect of kiwifruit juice and tumbling in improving tenderness and to access antioxidant potential of kiwifruit juice.

Three treatment groups were made: Spent hen meat was subjected to still marination (SM) and tumbling marination (TM). This meat was used for preparation of whole muscle chicken nuggets and compared with control (without marination) nuggets (Con). These treatments were subjected to analysis of physicochemical characteristics, textural quality, lipid oxidation and sensory quality.

SM and TM exhibited higher moisture content and lower protein and fat content than Control SM and TM showed significant (p = 0.132) reduction in firmness from 5.1 to 2.3 and 1.2 Kg/cm², respectively, and toughness from 14.1 to 6.2 and 3.3 Kg-sec/cm², respectively, as observed by Warner-Bratzler shear and improvement in texture profile values. Sensory scores for texture, juiciness and overall acceptability were also better for SM and TM. Significant (p = 0.007) reduction was observed in lipid oxidation parameters of SM and TM. Thiobarbituric acid (TBA) values (on 0 day) for SM and TM were 0.18 and 0.15 as compared to 0.28 mg/kg of malonaldehyde for control. Peroxide values (PV) were also lower for SM and TM as 0.44 and 0.33, which were lesser than control (0.62 meq. peroxide/kg). The values for PV, TBA and free fatty acid increased with increase in storage period in all treatment groups. However, the antioxidant activity of kiwifruit juice persisted during whole storage period evidenced by lower values of lipid oxidation parameters for SM and TM than Control at each storage interval.

Further research may be carried out to compare the tenderizing potential of kiwifruit juice with other plant proteases and physical tenderizing techniques. Spent hen meat utilization can be done with greater efficiency by using such techniques in meat caterings.

Spent hen meat utilization can done with greater efficiency by using such techniques in meat caterings.

Marination with kiwifruit juice improved the quality characteristics of chicken nuggets made from spent hen meat without altering its sensory quality. Tumbling was found to be beneficial in enhancing the tenderizing effect. Therefore, marination with kiwifruit juice can be used as a processing technology to use spent hen meat in preparing value added products.

If you asked people in the UK to describe a Kiwifruit, most would be hard put to do so. Until recently only a very few of these interesting fruit were imported into the UK where they were sold by high class, specialist fruiterers. Now, with increasing production in New Zealand, a larger allocation of supplies is being dispatched to the UK for national distribution.

New Zealand and Australian agri-food industries are being restructured both as a consequence of the extension of neoliberal policy settings and as a result of the increasing influence of the global supermarket sector. In the EU, supermarkets have sought to standardise and harmonise compliance, with their influence being felt well beyond European boundaries. EurepGAP (a European standard for ‘Good Agricultural Practices’) is an example of an emerging ‘audit culture’ where strict adherence to set rules of operation emerges as the basis for accreditation of goods and services. It represents the trend towards private sector standardization and assurance schemes, and provides an example of the growing importance of the supermarket sector in sanctioning the on-ground activities that occur in the production and processing of farm-derived outputs.

This chapter highlights the influence of EurepGAP protocols in the reorganisation of the agri-food industries of New Zealand and Australia. It argues that – for industries such as vegetable and fruit production, where Europe is the final destination – compliance with EurepGAP standards has largely become essential. In this sense, EurepGAP has emerged as the standard among producers who wish to export their products. The chapter concludes with an assessment of EurepGAP as a form of global agri-food governance that demonstrates a strong relationship between new audit cultures and neoliberal forms of trade regulation. In both Australia and New Zealand, some production sectors have rapidly adopted EurepGAP – despite extra costs, reduced choices over crop management and a lingering sense of resentment at the internal imposition of yet another production audit – primarily as a solution to the politics of risk in the context of high levels of exposure to market requirements under neoliberalism. The implications of this for Antipodean farming are considered in detail.

Purpose – This chapter examines the evolution of new audit and traceability systems in New Zealand horticultural export industries. Identified as one trajectory in New Zealand agriculture partly resulting from neoliberal reform, the arrival of audit culture in food export industries has significantly repositioned these export sectors, particularly in relation to how they might respond to new energy and climate change challenges.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter reviews the neoliberalisation of New Zealand agriculture in the 1980s and then examines the emergence of specific industry, audit and regulatory responses to new challenges around energy and climate change. Horticultural export sectors are used to demonstrate these responses and then compared with other, more productivist-oriented sectors in New Zealand.

Findings – The argument presented at the end of this chapter is that those food export sectors that have embraced the new audit approaches rather than taking a more productivist pathway will be better positioned to cope with the shocks of new energy costs and climate change requirements.

Originality/value – This chapter demonstrates the variable outcomes of neoliberal reform in agriculture. It identifies new audit and governance technologies as both an essential contributor to understanding the nature of global food chains and a potentially important contributor to achieving greater agri-food resilience in the face of future shocks like climate change.

This exploratory study seeks to examine self‐reported recall of eating occasions that contain fruit. The aim is to obtain insights around the use of fruit in a range of eating occasions, and to identify the ways that various fruit types are incorporated into the diet.

A longitudinal study obtained detail about eating occasions using 24‐hour dietary recall over a three‐month period. A total of 25 women aged between 35‐66 years with a moderate to high annual household income took part. There were 5,791 eating occasions reported, of which 29 per cent contained fruit.

Individual fruit types were integrated into the diet in varying ways. Diversity was observed within and between participants in terms of the foods and beverages that were typically consumed during eating occasions that contained fruit. The paper documents contextual characteristics of eating occasions that featured individual fruit types.

The study comprised a small, relatively homogeneous sample population, and no quantities of fruit consumed were measured. However, the longitudinal design enabled a broad range of eating occasions containing fruit to be captured for each participant.

The findings help build a more comprehensive understanding of how fruits are incorporated into the diet. The approach can be applied to a larger and more diverse sample population to explore fruit consumption further. Typical usage patterns for individual fruit may then be used to develop effective suggestions for promoting fruit consumption.

Agricultural products are generally characterised by their commodity status. After years of poor returns, the New Zealand kiwi fruit industry developed the ZESPRI^TM branding program in an attempt to position New Zealand kiwi fruit as an upmarket fruit category that appealed to today’s consumers. The brand has recently been released in New Zealand. This research assesses the effectiveness of ZESPRI’s strategy and explores the implications for branded fruit produce in general. The level of brand awareness of ZESPRI was found to be low among consumers, however brand awareness could be increased through a relationship marketing program involving targeted marketing and supply‐chain management.

Taiwan is one of the newly industrialised economies. Its foreign currency reserves are among the largest in the world. Still, few efforts have been expended to examine its distribution system. This article intends to examine issues concerning Taiwan’s distribution system and its impact on foreign‐produced consumer products. Based on examining the distribution channels for six New Zealand‐produced products, a number of conclusions are drawn. The findings of this study point out that firms’ choice of market entry mode might be affected by the host market’s distribution system. The most common channel structure used by foreign producers marketing in Taiwan is a multiple channel system. In addition, the study concurs with findings on the Japanese distribution system, that a common problem facing firms operating in these markets is the large number of small sized retailing outlets. Due to the similarities of the two systems, foreign firms are recommended to use the experience of those firms which have successfully penetrated the Japanese market.