Strawberries atop a pavlova has usually been a sign of summer and Christmas in Aotearoa, but not anymore.
A New Zealand strawberry company has the fruit on the shelves already, and it is only August.
With disruption and supply issues limiting strawberry imports from Australia during winter, several local growers are stepping up to fill the gap in the market.
Sunrise Berries in Port Waikato is the first of these suppliers with fruit in shops.
Fresh Berry Company used Sunrise to grow some strawberries. Its general manager Simon Tallon told Checkpoint the overseas roadblocks have spurred local production in the colder months.
"We're only allowed strawberries in from the US and Australia for quarantine measures, so we haven't had US strawberries very much in the last few years because Australian production has jumped up significantly.
"But obviously with Covid and the significant floods and bad weather they've had in Australia this year we've had very few coming through to New Zealand, which is not a bad thing [for] New Zealand-grown."
The strawberries are grown in plastic tunnels which hold heat and simulate warmer conditions, giving about 5degC more heat from the sun.
Tallon says the early crop is due to a combination of the strawberry variety as well as creative infrastructure.
"Some of it is the plants, the genetics, but a lot is to do with the plastic tunnels where we're trying to get a little bit more heat into the plants.
"We're also up on tables here, so we're tabletop growing.
"We don't have the doors down at the moment, but we've got the ability to fully enclose them, which gets the heat and then gets that early growth."
Netting keeps the birds out, which can be a problem in winter as there is not much else for them to feed on outside. "So they're quite happy to have a nice feed of strawberries."
"We're still trying to find the perfect plant, the perfect fruit, but for sure there's a few of us out here now trying to grow winter production strawberries for the consumers of New Zealand."
Fresh strawberries in plastic boxes. Photo: 123rf.com
Reliance on backpackers
Like a lot of local industries, Tallon says the shortage of labour has created issues, but he's hopeful the number of pickers will soon pick up.
"We are expecting it to be pretty challenging this coming year and then hopefully, obviously with the borders opening up and people starting to travel again, maybe backpackers starting to come through.
"Because backpackers have been quite an important part of the primary production industry, particularly in picking strawberries."
