The success of Zespri's SunGold Kiwifruit continues after winning two awards at the New Zealand Innovation Awards.

Zespri won the Sustained Innovation Excellence and Export Innovator of the Year at the awards which were held in Auckland on Thursday night.

Operations Manager Bryan Parkes says Zespri SunGold Kiwifruit has been the cornerstone of the industry's Psa recovery, with volumes growing strongly to great reception from customers and consumers around the world.

'SunGold was developed in the Zespri-Plant & Food Research new cultivar breeding programme with the support of the NZ government and it's been a real game-changer for the industry.

'It has a high yield on-orchard, tolerates Psa, handles and stores well through the supply chain and its sweet, juicy taste and high levels of vitamin C make it a hit in the markets.”

The success of SunGold is critical to Zespri achieving its goal of more than doubling sales revenue to $4.5 billion by 2025. So far SunGold has created around 6800 jobs and is on track to account for a total of at least 14,000 extra jobs by 2025.

It's also had a great reception around the world, driving up demand, earning premium prices and generating value for kiwifruit growers.

With such strong positive feedback from the markets, Zespri has allocated another 400 hectares of SunGold licence this year and provision for another 400 hectares each year for the next three years.

Currently there are about 5300 licenced hectares of SunGold in NZ and around another 3000ha licenced around the world to provide 12-month supply to Zespri customers and keep a year-round presence on shop shelves.

'Together Zespri, Plant & Food Research and the government invest around $20 million a year in the breeding programme which has been running since the 1980s, making it one of the largest new cultivar breeding programmes in the world.”

SunGold was fast tracked to commercialisation in a crisis – the incursion of the vine killing bacteria Psa in 2010 that destroyed the highly successful Zespri gold kiwifruit variety 'Hort16a'.

Bryan says winning the NZ Innovation awards is a real boost for the many researchers who've worked on this programme over the years and he's both humbled and proud to accept them on their behalf.

'It's takes a long time to commercialise a new cultivar: SunGold was commercialised in 2010 and has almost entirely replaced the previous gold cultivar Zespri Gold or Hort16A, which was very susceptible to Psa.

'We have a new green and a red cultivar in precommercial trials and, if either of them have what it takes to be another successful Zespri cultivar, a commercialisation decision will be made in the next few years.”