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Season calendar

New Zealand fresh produce export calendar

When New Zealand ships kiwifruit, apples, avocados and buttercup squash by sea, month by month, on the longest reefer lanes in the calendar.

Load ports
Tauranga, Napier, and Nelson
Produce covered
Kiwi Kiwi Apple Apple Avocado Avocado Buttercup squash Buttercup squash
Lanes out of here
New Zealand → Philadelphia, New Zealand → Rotterdam
New Zealand fresh produce export calendar: which produce ships in which month.
Produce January February March April May June July August September October November December
Kiwi January: Not shipping February: Not shipping March: Not shipping April: Shoulder May: Peak June: Peak July: Peak August: Peak September: Shoulder October: Shoulder November: Shoulder December: Not shipping
Apple January: Not shipping February: Shoulder March: Peak April: Peak May: Peak June: Peak July: Shoulder August: Shoulder September: Not shipping October: Not shipping November: Not shipping December: Not shipping
Avocado January: Shoulder February: Shoulder March: Not shipping April: Not shipping May: Not shipping June: Not shipping July: Not shipping August: Shoulder September: Peak October: Peak November: Peak December: Shoulder
Buttercup squash January: Peak February: Peak March: Peak April: Shoulder May: Not shipping June: Not shipping July: Not shipping August: Not shipping September: Not shipping October: Not shipping November: Not shipping December: Shoulder
Peak — shipping in volume Shoulder — opening or closing Export windows out of the origin, not arrival weeks. Add the lane's transit.

Last reviewed August 2026. Windows are editorial ranges for a normal year, not a published schedule, and they are export weeks out of New Zealand rather than arrival weeks in your market.

New Zealand exports two crops at a scale that matters to a European or American buyer — kiwifruit and apples — and both of them are on the calendar because of the same property: they store. That is not incidental. New Zealand is further from its markets than any other origin here, five weeks by sea to Northern Europe, and nothing that cannot sit in a controlled atmosphere for that long has a programme on those lanes.

So the shipping window is longer than the harvest window and is set by the seller rather than by the tree. Kiwifruit is picked from March and ships into December; apples harvest from February and ship well past the autumn. The practical consequence is that an arrival date on this origin is a commercial decision someone made months earlier, and the fruit’s age on the shelf is a number worth asking for rather than inferring from the sailing date.

Buttercup squash is the exception on the page and worth knowing about for that reason. It goes to Japan rather than to Europe, on a lane of weeks rather than of months, and it is grown on contract against a specification agreed before planting. Distance is not what constrains it and storage is not what makes it possible.

Kiwi

May–August peak · April, September–November shoulder Varieties: Hayward green, SunGold

Harvest runs from about March to June; shipping runs from April into December. New Zealand is the origin that defines this crop for a European or Asian buyer, and the gap between those two ranges is the whole point — the fruit is held in controlled atmosphere and released against a programme rather than against the harvest.

SunGold ships ahead of Hayward green and commands the premium. Both are on the longest reefer lanes in this calendar, five weeks or more to Northern Europe, which is only possible because kiwifruit tolerates it. A window this long is not a long harvest; it is a long store.

Kiwi season across every origin

Apple

March–June peak · February, July–August shoulder Varieties: Royal Gala, Braeburn, Envy, Jazz

Harvest from February to May out of Hawke’s Bay and Nelson, shipping from March into the Northern Hemisphere autumn. It lands in the months when European and North American apples are at their oldest, which is the entire commercial argument for shipping fruit half way round the world.

New Zealand ships more of its crop under club varieties than any other origin, and those are sold on a promise about condition. That makes what the reefer actually did on a five-week voyage worth more here than on a lane where the fruit is sold as a commodity.

Apple season across every origin

Avocado

September–November peak · August, December–February shoulder Varieties: Hass

Roughly August to February, peaking in the Southern Hemisphere spring. Volume is small next to the Latin American origins and most of it goes to Australia and East Asia, where the shorter lane is what makes it work.

It is a biennial crop, alternating heavier and lighter years, so a New Zealand avocado programme is worth confirming against the actual harvest rather than against last year’s volume.

Avocado season across every origin

Buttercup squash

January–March peak · April, December shoulder Varieties: Delica

Harvest from about late December, shipping January to April into Japan. It is the shortest window New Zealand runs and the only one on this page sold almost entirely to a single country — Japanese kabocha supply runs out in the New Year, and this is what covers the gap until it comes back.

It is also the one New Zealand row where the fruit is not the fragile part. Squash is cured before loading, ships at an ambient setpoint rather than a chilled one, and keeps for months. What loses a container is moisture — condensation in a box that was closed warm, or a bruise taken in handling that rots on a three-week voyage.

Buttercup squash season across every origin

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Other origins

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