Kiwi Fruit Picking

Eat it with a spoon. Peel the skin. Put it on pavlova. Bite right in. Most of us have eaten the little egg-shaped hairy brown fruit we call a kiwi, but have any of you thought about how the kiwi got to your table? I know I certainly hadn't. I remember eating kiwi upon kiwi in college; all you needed was a spoon and you were set. But I never gave much thought about where a kiwi came from. And now after my kiwi fruit picking experience, I can say that I will never look at a kiwi the same.

Jack and I came to the North Island of New Zealand specifically to pick kiwi fruit. After working in a cafe for 8 months, I was ready for a change. I was excited to work outside, do something new, and put my body to the challenge (and boy did I have no idea what was coming).

We arrived in the wee town of Te Puke 20th of May. Te Puke is a town that is renowned for kiwi fruit. In fact it's even on their town sign. I mean it's a pretty big thing to be the Kiwi Fruit Capital of the World am I right?

We got all our paperwork sorted out that day and were told we would start the next day. Did I mention that that was the very first time I've ever seen a kiwi fruit vine? Before this day I didn't even know if a kiwi fruit grew on a vine, a tree, or in the ground like a potato (I mean it kind of looks like a potato don't you think?). As it turns out, kiwis grow on vines, vines which I would become VERY familiar with in the upcoming weeks. The following day we showed up for work and were pretty much thrown into it. After a 10 second demonstration of how to pick kiwi fruit, we were on our way. We were given two things when we showed up for work - a pair of gloves (which we found would only last about 3 days because of the vigorous picking) and a kiwi picking bag. The bag slips over your head and straps to the front of your chest. This is where you put the kiwis as soon as you pick them.

Once the bag is filled, you loosen two strings on either side and gently lower the bottom of the bag into a kiwi bin which is kept on a trailer. There are 4 bins on the trailer.

Now I was told that the key to picking kiwi fruit is being fast. The faster you are, the more money you make. What I was not prepared for, however, is how much kiwi fruit you end up picking in a day. On the second day of picking, I picked 237 bags of kiwis. There are approximately 180 kiwis in each bag, which means I picked about 42,660 kiwis in one day. We had 14 people on our team which as a whole filled 192 bins. One bin = about 18 bags of kiwis, so 192 bins= 622,080 kiwis. We were told that the 4 different teams as a whole picked over 2 million kiwis that day. That's a lot of kiwis!! 2 million kiwis in one day...

With picking that many kiwis, I can't begin to tell you how sore you get... It's like going to the gym on arm day x 20. By day 3 my arms were so sore I could barely lift them above my chest, and when I got off work, it still felt like I was carrying a bag full of kiwis even though there was nothing on me. Jack and I were so exhausted we would go to bed at 7 pm and wouldn't get up until 7:30-8:00am. Deep heat became our best friend.

Another thing that comes with picking kiwi fruit, is the amount of dust and kiwi hairs you inhale on a daily basis. There is lots of sneezing involved and getting little irritants in your eyes. To avoid this, many people wear sunglasses and neck gators over their mouth.

If you ever become a kiwi fruit picker, I will give you one piece of advice and that is to choose your music player very wisely (although as in our circumstance we didn't get much of a choice). While performing such a repetitive job, what's something that can vastly make it better? Music. What's something that can vastly make it worse? Also music. We were not allowed to wear headphones as we were supposed to "be aware of our surroundings." Someone in your team however could carry a speaker around to play music. The first few days of working, we were very thankful for the music. But then music guy #1 left and George* (name has been changed) took over the music. Nothing against George, but he had terrible taste in music. I also don't know if George knew he could play a different playlist instead of having the same one on repeat 4 days in a row. This may not sound that bad, but when you do something so repetitive as picking kiwis for 8 hours, the music you listen to becomes a huge deal. And personally neither the song "No Vampires Remain in Romania" nor the repeated DSCH DSCH DSCH of German EDM music floats my boat (sorry to all my German friends out there). On a positive note, I came to be extremely thankful for Jack and I's similar taste in music. Because let me tell you, that really is a big thing to have in common.

Another thing that made our experience a little less than enjoyable was the obscure silence of our teammates. From the very first day, Jack and I came to wonder if talking in general was frowned upon while kiwi-picking. After listening to all the other teams laughing and chanting encouragement toward each other, we realized it was just our team. I don't think we would have even gotten a hello from any of our teammates unless we basically forced conversation on them. I partook in many awkward and dead-end conversations until finally giving up. I'm not sure what made our team think humans are incapable of working and talking at the same time, but I thought talking would be a good way to pass the time - (and make new friends!) Sadly, we didn't get very far on the friend front. But as in everything, the silver lining was that our team was fast at picking kiwis - and really, what more could you ask for?

Most kiwi fruit picking is casual work, which simply means you can either show up for work or not. There's good and bad to this. On one hand, if you don't feel like coming to work one day, you don't have to. But on the other hand, this makes it more tempting to just take a day off instead of making money. We also can't work when it's raining or if there is heavy dew which means with it being winter in New Zealand, work is not very reliable.

For several reasons, Jack and I have now come to decide to pursue other jobs. Kiwi fruit picking was definitely an experience, but I can't really say I will miss it haha. I know one thing for sure, I will never look at a kiwi fruit the same. I will definitely have a deeper sense of respect and gratitude for the amount of work that went into putting a small fuzzy brown fruit on the table.