While the eye-catching kiwano horned melon may be in the same family as cucumber, Vanessa and Alan Hutchings of Enzed Exotics cringe at the comparison. With a farm that has been growing the fruit in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty since 1985, the pair’s passion is tangible as the country’s leading kiwano growers with around 90% of their crop dedicated to export.

With its origins in Africa and a rare source of hydration during dry periods in the Kalahari Desert, the kiwano has also found a home in New Zealand’s fertile and lush Bay of Plenty region on the North Island. 

Alan and Vanessa Hutchings.

It’s a region better known for its kiwifruit industry, and the kiwano crop is miniscule in comparison. But Alan and Vanessa are optimistic about the fruit’s potential from their humble farm of nine hectares, with hopes of producing 50,000 trays next season.

“Not everything in the Bay of Plenty is brown and hairy. This is orange and horny,” jokes Vanessa.

“The kiwano has got really high water content, actually higher than a watermelon. When it’s ripe it’s got this beautiful orange exterior and when you cut it open there’s bright green flesh inside,” says Vanessa.

“You’d probably compare it in the inside more to a passionfruit where the seeds sit inside jelly sacks – it is quite a jelly flesh and it makes fantastic juice.”

She adds the juice is also for ideal in cocktails with “a little bit of passion fruit, Malibu and vodka”, while it’s also perfect for adding to yogurt or ice cream.

“Sometimes people describe the kiwano as having a similar taste to the kiwifruit. I don’t get that myself. Its strongest characteristics tastewise are banana, passionfruit and lime, so it’s a very refreshing flavor,” she says.

“It’s really beautiful on the inside when you cut it open - it’s really not what you’re expecting. And it’s a very versatile fruit as well with subtle flavors,” adds Alan.

“I like cutting it up lengthways, mixing it up with a spoon, adding lime juice, rock salt and whatever chili sauce I’ve got.”

Alan reminisces to the first time he came across the fruit in the 1980s.

“I grew up growing kiwifruit on an orchard with my father, and I was visiting my brother-in-law’s house and there was one in the fruit bowl,” he says. 

“I’d never seen anything like it – it just captivated me, I think that’s what I was put on earth to do. I’ve done it every year ever since.”

For a little while Alan also had production in the United States in order to have back-to-back seasons, with production in New Zealand for the first half of the year and from California in the second.

“It just became too much and the New Zealand dollar went really high there for a while so the money wasn’t in there,” he says.

Over time the pair have perfected the quality and productive characteristics of the fruit, with Alan doing seed selection from the best fruit each year.

“There are specific characteristics that we look for. We feel like our fruit is quite recognizable, so we can see what fruit is ours when it’s online or on social media.

"We have multiple social media pages across all the platforms and we’re active across all of them. We have our own website and we also have an online platform called The Exotic Grocer where consumers can buy direct through our online platforms as well."

She says the fruit's main nutritional benefits are in its high levels of magnesium, Vitamin A and beta-carotene, while Enzed Exotics doesn't use any chemical sprays on the fields; just seaweed-based fertilizer.

Perhaps a result of its upbringing in harsh desert conditions, kiwano melons actually store very well too, according to Vanessa and Alan.

"It’s a bit of an unusual character the kiwano because it shouldn’t be refrigerated. You shouldn’t put your kiwano in the fridge, and if you’re a kiwano wholesaler or distributor, you don’t want to be storing it in a chiller," says Vanessa.

"The ideal is room temperature, just an ambient temperature with some airflow which you can achieve by putting a couple of oscillating fans," she says.

She believes there is still "considerable" room for growth in the company's leading market, the United States, but Enzed Exotics has got other markets in its sights where Alan and Vanessa would like to see the fruit enter and grow in consumption.

"Probably we’ll head to the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium; the Netherlands is a really large produce hub," Vanessa says.

She mentions the company participated in the London Produce Show this year and will be going to the New York Produce Show in December. 

"We did great business at the London Produce Show – we got some really exciting potential up there, and we’re exhibiting for the very first time in New York in December, so that’s very exciting for us as well," she says.

But after more than three decades producing the fruit, we ask why it still hasn't taken off yet in a big way.

"It’s a niche product. It's not well known at this stage but we plan to change that. Not a lot of people understand it or know about it, so it’s our mission to educate the consumer about the kiwano," Vanessa says.

"Kiwifruit was in exactly the same boat 40 years ago – it was an unknown, and now it’s probably the largest commodity out of New Zealand."

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