Source: Radio New Zealand
RNZ
Five years after Who’s Eating NZ, this series revisits where our food goes, but this time through the lens of Kiwi breakfast, lunch and dinner staples. We track how much of what we produce is eaten here, and who has a seat at our global table during meal times. First, let’s tuck into some brekkie.
For many Kiwis, it’s an essential start to the day, but if you think of our dairy produce as a single flat white, New Zealanders get one small swig and the rest is drunk overseas.
There are 4.7 million dairy cows grazing 1.7m hectares of dairying farmland, yet only 235,000 are effectively producing milk to moisten our Weet-Bix at home. According to
DairyNZ estimates we produce enough milk for 90 million people to have 2.5 servings of dairy each day.
This is a boon for our export earnings – and it’s growing. A whopping 95 percent of the dairy we produce is exported, earning billions in the process. Dairy exports were worth roughly $24 billion in 2025, a 54 percent increase from the $16b it earned five years earlier.
China has grown to become our biggest buyer of dairy exports. From a mere $13.5m in 1990, it climbed to $8b last year – about a third of the total.
It’s a long way ahead of the next biggest buyer, Indonesia, which spent $1.2bn buying our dairy last year. It’s a promising market for growth – a new school milk programme in the country is slated for 83m children. Saudi Arabia was the third biggest buyer, purchasing $1.1bn of our dairy.
The flipside to the lucrative export trade is that the prices we pay at home for dairy are tied to prices exporters can get offshore. When international butter rose last year, Kiwis saw the price on local supermarket shelves reach sky-high levels.
In June, shoppers were paying $8.60 for the cheapest 500g block, according to Stats NZ. That same month, Consumer NZ shared a photo of a 500g tub of semi-soft butter priced at $18.29, prompting a flood of frustrated comments. “We make the butter here (WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVE),” one person wrote. “Apparently NZ doesn’t make butter,” another said, adding they were being sarcastic.
Butter brought in $800m of export earnings, up from $332m in 2020, a 143 percent increase. The United States was the biggest buyer of butter in 2025. Walmart, Trader Joes, Whole Foods, and Costco all sell New Zealand butter, marketing it as grass-fed and richly coloured.
A smear of honey on toast is a sweet treat for many Kiwis, but behind the sticky spread is an industry that has seen booms, busts and stockpiles.
A mānuka honey goldrush spurred on by jars selling for thousands of dollars offshore saw a proliferation of beehives. Some beekeepers say it led to too many bees and too much honey.
Unlike other products, honey can be stored indefinitely. Apiculture New Zealand said between 2018 and 2022 we produced twice as much honey as we were exporting, and a stockpile was created.
When RNZ looked at food exports in 2020, less than 40 percent of honey made its way offshore. Now that figure has climbed to 72 percent, leaving 28 percent for local tables.
Now the number of registered beehives has plummeted from 900,000 to 500,000 and the stockpile is being consumed.
Our export market has shifted. In 2020 China was our biggest buyer, spending $95m, however since 2021 top spot has swung to the US. By 2025, China’s spending dropped to $58m, putting them behind the UK and in third place.
Bad weather has affected 2026 honey harvests.
Fancy a few spoonfuls of zingy kiwifruit for brekkie? While locals enjoy a taste, 95 percent of the fruit is whisked off around the world.
Despite their moniker, kiwifruit aren’t native to New Zealand. They’re originally from China, with seeds arriving in New Zealand in 1904.
For decades they were known as Chinese gooseberries until exporters Turners & Growers renamed them as kiwifruit in 1959, a move Time magazine called “a stroke of marketing genius” and described as effectively hijacking the fruit. The stroke of marketing genius and tightly controlled export rules controlled by legislation has paid off.
New Zealand is the world’s biggest kiwifruit exporter and leads the way with new varieties, which are fiercely protected. In 2025, a Chinese grower was ordered by local courts to rip out 260 hectares of yellow SunGold kiwifruit grown without a license and pay Zespri compensation of $1.8m.
Looking at export numbers it’s clear why Zespri fought so hard to stop its intellectual property being hijacked. In the 2024/2025 financial year, gold kiwifruit was the top seller. According to Zespri’s annual report, 121.8 million trays of SunGold kiwifruit were sold compared to 58.4m trays of green kiwifruit. The new RubyRed variety sold 1.5m trays to 13 different markets.
In the past five years export earnings from kiwifruit have increased 66 percent to $4.5bn, with green, gold and red varieties all contributing. Since 1991, we’ve earned around $37bn from the furry fruit. During this time, the top buyer of kiwifruit shuffled between Europe and China. Japan, South Korea and the US were also large buyers.
At home, prices are seasonal, peaking in the summer and falling during winter. In July last year, StatsNZ reported a 1kg bag cost $3.72.
Stay tuned for Wednesday’s story, where we take a look at who we’re sharing our lunch with and dive into avocado, seafood, apple and water exports.
Where the data came from:
Dairy: Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand and StatsNZ trade data items with a harmonised system description containing “Dairy produce”
Honey: Apiculture NZ and StatsNZ trade data items with a harmonised system description containing “Honey”.
Kiwifruit: Zespri and StatsNZ trade data items with a harmonised system description containing “Fruit, edible; kiwifruit”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
