Southern seasons run backwards
New Zealand sits in the southern hemisphere, so the growing year is shifted six months from the one you are used to. A July trip from London or Chicago lands in a New Zealand winter, and the famous summer fruit — cherries, apricots, nectarines, berries — is either absent or imported and expensive.
The reverse is also true. A January visit puts you in peak stone fruit and berry season but well outside the kiwifruit harvest, which is an autumn event.
What ripens in each season
New Zealand's produce seasons are set out in the 5+ A Day availability chart, published by the industry-funded trust of the same name. The table below shows the season in which each crop first becomes widely available, using the trust's own groupings; many items continue into the following season.
| Season | Fruit | Vegetables |
|---|---|---|
| Spring (Sep–Nov) | Strawberries, blueberries, boysenberries, tangelos | Asparagus, artichokes, peas, new potatoes |
| Summer (Dec–Feb) | Cherries, apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, melons | Beans, sweetcorn, capsicum, courgettes |
| Autumn (Mar–May) | Apples, feijoa, kiwifruit, persimmon, nashi, passionfruit | Pumpkin, leeks, fennel, rhubarb |
| Winter (Jun–Aug) | Mandarins, navel oranges, lemons, grapefruit, tamarillo | Parsnips, swedes, yams |
Broccoli, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, kūmara, onions, mushrooms and tomatoes are listed as available all year. So are bananas, pineapples and grapes — but those are imported, which the availability chart marks explicitly. Asparagus is the sharpest of the short seasons: one of the country's larger growers says it comes to market in late August or early September and runs through to Christmas.
Feijoa and the autumn window
Feijoa is the fruit most visitors have never met, and the only reliable way to meet it is to be in New Zealand in autumn. It is an egg-shaped green fruit with fragrant, gritty, sweet-tart flesh that you halve and scoop with a teaspoon.
There is a structural reason you have not seen it at home. Fresh Facts 2025 records roughly 100 feijoa growers on about 175 hectares producing around 12,000 tonnes, with export sales under NZ$0.1 million — it is grown almost entirely for the domestic market, and it bruises and ferments quickly.
Why the famous fruit is branded
Kiwifruit carries a brand name because the law puts one company in charge of exporting it. Kiwifruit New Zealand, the industry's regulator, describes Zespri as the "single desk" exporter of New Zealand-grown kiwifruit to every country except Australia, a position created under the Kiwifruit Industry Restructuring Act 1999 and the Kiwifruit Export Regulations 1999.
Growers voted for that structure. NZKGI's industry history records that 84% of growers backed a statutory single-desk exporter in 1988 after a period when most of them were losing money competing against each other.
Gold kiwifruit is not a variety anyone can plant. Zespri's revenue includes the sale of plant variety right licences, so growing SunGold requires buying licensed rights — which is why the gold fruit is priced above the green. Apples work differently: the harvest was already under way by late February in 2026, and the crop is spread across a long run of varieties rather than picked in one burst.
Where to buy produce in Auckland
Auckland gives you four distinct ways to buy fruit and vegetables, and the price gap between them is large.
- Supermarkets (Woolworths, New World, Pak'nSave) stock the widest range, but seasonal produce is where their prices move most.
- Suburban greengrocers and Asian grocers, common on Dominion Road, Sandringham Road and around Northcote, are usually cheaper than supermarkets for the same vegetables.
- Farmers' markets put you in front of the grower, at weekend hours only, at prices that reflect small-scale production rather than bulk supply.
- Roadside stalls on rural routes north and south of the city sell single crops in season — avocados near Kerikeri, strawberries in the south, citrus in the north.
Many roadside stalls are unstaffed and run on an honesty box: you take the bag and leave the money in a tin or a slot. Carry small notes and coins, because these stalls rarely have card readers. For volume at low prices, the Avondale Sunday Market runs every Sunday from 5am to 12pm and is strongest on fruit and vegetables — arrive before mid-morning.
Auckland farmers' markets by day
Auckland's farmers' markets are weekend-only, and the four member markets listed by Farmers' Markets New Zealand split evenly between Saturday and Sunday. Hours below are as published by the operators or the national association.
| Market | Day | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Parnell Farmers' Market | Saturday | 8am–12pm |
| Matakana Village Farmers' Market | Saturday | 8am–1pm |
| Grey Lynn Farmers' Market | Sunday | 8.30am–12pm |
| Clevedon Farmers' Market | Sunday | 8am–1pm |
Grey Lynn and Parnell are reachable on city buses; Matakana is about 45 minutes north of the city by car, and Clevedon sits southeast of Manukau at the showgrounds. Clevedon closes over Christmas, at Easter and on Clevedon A&P Show day, so check before making the drive. Pick-your-own berry farms operate on the city's southern and eastern fringes in the warm months, but opening dates move with the weather — confirm on the individual farm's own page before you set out.
Fruit you cannot carry
Fruit cannot cross New Zealand's border casually, in either direction. Every arriving traveller must complete a New Zealand Traveller Declaration covering what is in their bags, and food, plant and animal products have to be declared.
Inside the country, movement of fruit and vegetables out of a suburb can be restricted while a fruit fly response is running — this has happened in Auckland before. Check the Ministry for Primary Industries' current advice before carrying fruit between regions, and do not assume a supermarket bag is exempt. Taking fruit out of New Zealand is governed by the destination country's rules, not New Zealand's, so check those separately.
Prices swing hard with the seasons, and the swings are published: Stats NZ releases monthly selected price indexes that include fruit and vegetable prices, which is the place to look if you want the actual figures for the month you are travelling rather than an estimate.
If your dates fall wrong
If you arrive in the wrong month for the fruit you came for, the honest answer is to switch crops rather than chase it. A June or July visitor will find no cherries worth buying, but will find mandarins, tamarillo and stored apples at their best, and winter vegetables cheap.
Two things stay open all year. Imported fruit — bananas, pineapples, grapes — is stocked continuously, and Zespri kiwifruit is sold outside the New Zealand harvest window from offshore growing. Neither will taste like fruit picked down the road last week, and both cost more than the crop that is actually in season around you.
If a specific fruit is the reason for the trip, book the trip around it: feijoa and kiwifruit mean March to May, cherries and stone fruit mean late December and January, asparagus means September to Christmas.