Season calendar
Kiwi export season by country
Kiwi export season by country
When New Zealand, Chile and Italy ship kiwifruit, month by month, and why the shipping window is so much longer than the harvest.
Peak supply November–August from Chile, New Zealand and Italy. No origin on this page is at peak in September–October.
| Origin | January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chile April–June peak · March, July shoulder | January: Not shipping | February: Not shipping | March: Shoulder | April: Peak | May: Peak | June: Peak | July: Shoulder | August: Not shipping | September: Not shipping | October: Not shipping | November: Not shipping | December: Not shipping |
| New Zealand May–August peak · April, September–November shoulder | 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 |
| Italy November–March peak · April–May, October shoulder | January: Peak | February: Peak | March: Peak | April: Shoulder | May: Shoulder | June: Not shipping | July: Not shipping | August: Not shipping | September: Not shipping | October: Shoulder | November: Peak | December: Peak |
Last reviewed August 2026. Windows are editorial ranges for a normal year, not a published schedule, and they are export weeks out of the origin rather than arrival weeks in your market.
The calendar has two halves that most buyers only ever see one of. Italy covers Europe’s winter and spring off an October harvest, almost entirely by truck, and it is the reason the Northern Hemisphere has a kiwi season at all. New Zealand is the origin that defines the crop for everyone else, with Chile filling the months around it; both harvest into the Southern Hemisphere autumn and both keep shipping long after the picking has finished. The Southern Hemisphere windows are worth what they are worth because they arrive once the Italian crop has run out — which means a short Italian year reprices a New Zealand programme six months before it sails.
That gap between harvest and shipping is the other thing to read off this calendar. Kiwis store in controlled atmosphere for months, so the window is set by the seller’s programme rather than by the tree, and the arrival date is a commercial decision rather than a botanical one. It is also what makes the five-week lane out of Tauranga possible at all: very little else would survive the voyage, and nothing else is deliberately held before starting it.
Chile
April–June peak · March, July shoulder Varieties: Hayward Load ports: Valparaíso, San Antonio, and Coronel
Roughly April to July, the last major thing to leave Chile in a normal year. Harvest runs into the Southern Hemisphere autumn and shipping continues from storage past it.
Because kiwis store, the window is a commercial decision rather than a harvest one. Ask when the seller intends to ship rather than when the fruit was picked.
New Zealand
May–August peak · April, September–November shoulder Varieties: Hayward green, SunGold Load ports: Tauranga, Napier, and Nelson
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.
Italy
November–March peak · April–May, October shoulder Varieties: Hayward, gold Load ports: Genoa, Livorno, and Salerno
Harvest in October and November out of Lazio, Piedmont and the Veneto; shipping and selling from storage until about May. This is the row that makes the New Zealand and Chilean windows worth what they are worth — those origins arrive into the months when Italian fruit has run out.
Read the two halves as one market rather than two calendars. When the Italian crop is short, the Southern Hemisphere programme sailing six months later is repriced before it is picked.
Importing kiwi? Trackberry tracks those containers and reads the paperwork that arrives with them, in one place. Book a 20-minute chat.
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