Food & Beverage
New Thinking
Science helps select the good oil
The science of taste is helping New Zealand's olive industry prove its success in pursuit of quality.
New fruits needed to fight snack food threat
HortResearch believes new fruit varieties will play a key role in ensuring fruit remains a key part of a health, balanced diet.
New pipfruit varieties set to excite Europe
HortResearch and industry join forces to take New Zealand innovation to the European apple and pear market.
The secret life of food
Once, food was just food. Now, it is a political or social construct attended by a bevy of ethical, economic and environmental issues. Is it really more than just a vital 50 different types of molecules and atoms needed to survive? Crown Research Institutes are involved in the challenging dialogue around what we eat, now and in the future.
The apple of Europe’s eye?
Healthy lifestyles, based on what we eat, is the coming thing. New Zealand’s leadership is recognized by having Crown Research Institute HortResearch as one of only two bodies outside the EU in a “farm to fork” programme seeking to deliver the taste, texture and nutrition EU consumers want.
NZ team unlocking the secrets of tastier, healthier apples
Fruit lovers everywhere will enjoy healthier, tastier apples thanks to world-leading work by Crown Research Institute HortResearch. But why would it share crucial gene data globally?
Stunning NZ red-fleshed apple is healthier to the core
Get ready to crunch in! A stunning red-fleshed apple, packed with health-promoting antioxidants, was recently unveiled by Crown Research Institute, HortResearch. The new (non GE) apple’s scrumptious flesh is rich red right to the core, due to the high level of the antioxidant anthocyanin.
New Science
Are omega-3 products really the good oil?
Consumers buying foods with omega-3 may not be getting the good oil they think they are says Rufus Turner, a lipids scientist with Crop & Food Research.
A serving of fish fingerlings, please
More than 120,000 off-spring to date and more to come from just 12 adult snapper. The country’s commercial and recreational fishers are smiling as Crown Research Institute Crop & Food Research creates the means to breed snapper in captivity.
New Value
Spanish launch for new pest management product
Small bugs mean big risks - and major loss of income - for greenhouse growers around the world. In New Zealand, onion thrips can be devastating to our largest horticultural crop, while capsicum and aubergine crops are also favourites.
Distinctive New Zealand flavours
Creating flavours from New Zealand native plants is the aim of a new, $1 million, Crop & Food Research programme that will see distinctive New Zealand food products developed for niche, high-value, export markets.
New Zealand takes bite of superfruit market
New research into health and nutrition is helping move fruit up the value chain.
Crop & Food develops cholesterol-free spread
Just released to market is a new spread made from rice bran oil that looks and tastes like butter, but without cholesterol or hydrogenated fats.
Evolving a food and beverage research strategy for New Zealand
Trends in the international marketplace play a key role in strategy development for food and beverage research. Chris Downs, General Manager Strategy, Crop & Food Research, takes a look at the evolving food R&D strategy and what has been achieved this year.
Research may help firm up pipfruit profits.
Apple growers, marketers and retailers may be able to increase the value of their product thanks to HortResearch showing that the trade and consumers measure fruit quality very differently.
NZ horticulture quietly takes export spotlight
Apart from flagships Kiwifruit and wine, NZ horticulture exports are seldom high profile. But look closer: in the year to March 2006 horticulture exports quietly hit $2.3 billion. That’s 7% of all NZ exports and a huge $100 million gain on the previous year. Strong growth owes much to ground-breaking new products, where HortResearch takes a driving role.
Growing the $NZ80 million export spud
The humble spud no longer. Sequencing the potato genome will open the way to potatoes with better nutritional value, colour and flavour, powering New Zealand’s $80 million export market. Crop & Food Research scientists are part of a $36 million study involving 8 countries.
