Discovery our apple growing season, from the first blossom to the first bite.
After a crisp, cool winter and a well-earned rest, trees come back into life, with new blossoms ready to be pollinated and develop into this year’s apples.
An apple tree can produce up to 2,500 flowers. Many of these flowers are then removed or thinned to make sure the tree can focus on growing the best fruit.
Bees are busy fertilising flowers. The fertilised flowers then develop into an apples.
A single bee will visit more than 100 flowers in an hour.
Once a flower is fertilised it slowly grows into a young apple known as a fruitlet. During this period, trees are carefully nurtured and managed for pest and diseases, to ensure the fruitlet has all it needs to grow into a delicious apple.
Typically, apple blossoms form in clusters of five. If all five blossoms are pollinated, they can develop into five fruitlets in a cluster.
Over the next three months, with long hours of summer sunshine, fresh water and lots of care, our apples grow into delicious fruit ready for harvest.
Apple trees take about 4 to 5 years to produce their first fruit. They are typically grown from grafting rather than seeds to ensure the desired characteristics of the apple variety.
Orchardists carefully monitor the fruit, checking colour and firmness to decide the perfect time to harvest. The harvest season lasts for several months as the different varieties reach perfection. Every apple is carefully selected and then hand-picked ready for packing.
We have a strong partnership with the Pacific Islands, and each year welcome apple pickers from nine countries to join us in harvesting the best apples
Apples are moved from orchard to packhouse where every apple is washed, and then sorted for colour, size and quality using state-of-the-art scanning technology, before a final check by hand ensures they are ready to be packed.
Each apple is photographed more than 200 times by fast and accurate cameras and scanners. Apples are checked from all angles looking for external and internal problems, ensuring only the highest-quality apples enter the market.
Once the best apples are selected they are carefully packed into cardboard cartons ready for market. Every box is labelled and tracked to ensure we know exactly where each apple came from and where they are going.
There are now robot packers in some packhouses that pick up each apple, turn it to face the right direction and put it in the box.
Once packed, our apples are then kept cool and carefully monitored as they are exported across the globe to more 80 countries.
Over 65% of the apples grown in New Zealand are exported overseas.
Enjoy the world's tastiest, safest apple, grown with care in New Zealand.
Apples are a great source of fibre and packed full of important minerals and vitamins, especially Vitamin C and Potassium.
