Purewa Remembers Jack Turner—The Man Who Named the Kiwifruit
Did you know that June 15 marks a massive milestone in New Zealand history? It’s the anniversary of the day the Chinese gooseberry officially became the Kiwifruit—and it all came down to a brilliant marketing insight by a legendary Aucklander: John (Jack) Penman Turner, MBE.
Kiwifruit: a History
Before it was a multi-billion dollar global industry, the fuzzy fruit was mainly beloved by forest monkey’s and rural foragers in China. First brought to Whanganui in 1904 by school principal Isabel Fraser, the plant’s popularity grew to become a trendy backyard garden staple, dubbed the Chinese Gooseberry because of its resemblance to the English gooseberry. Over the decades, New Zealanders became increasingly fond of it, and by the 1930s and 40s it had expanded to gardens nationwide, eventually appearing as a recommended topping in community and church recipe books as a topping for pavlova.
The fruit’s first exposure to the West came through British and American soldiers stationed in New Zealand. It was Auckland-based Turners & Growers who saw the opportunity and first opened the market to the US in the 1950s.
The company immediately hit a massive roadblock. To American customs officials, “gooseberries” were a European fruit grown on bushes close to the ground, which might harbour anthrax. Shipments faced quarantines and uncertainty. As for the public, the unappealing fuzzy brown skin and uninviting name meant most shoppers simply walked right past it. It was, in short, a hard sell.
It wasn’t until managing director Jack Turner’s marketing masterstroke in 1959 that the West finally embraced the fruit. Realising they needed a complete rebrand to capture the American imagination, Jack looked to New Zealand’s own identity and suggested a name change: the Kiwifruit. The name stuck, transforming the product from an obscure, hairy backyard curiosity into a global supermarket sensation. The markets rapidly opened, and by the 1979 season, Turners & Growers celebrated a staggering milestone—exporting over 1 million trays of kiwifruit to the world.
A Legacy Born in Auckland
Jack’s roots ran deep in Auckland. He was the eldest grandson of Edward Turner (who settled in Huia in 1885) and the eldest son of business legend Sir Harvey Turner. Growing up Mt Albert, Jack joined the family firm straight out of Mt Albert Grammar in 1932 during the height of the Great Depression because, as he put it, “There wasn’t much else to do anyway.”
He went on to spend nearly 90 years living in his beloved Mt Albert, serving as a pillar of the community, Sunday school superintendent, and choirmaster at the Mt Albert Baptist Church.
Nettle Soup: Jack’s WWII Journey
Jack enlisted early in World War II and served in the 27th Machine Gun Battalion in Egypt and the Holy Land. His unit went on to fight its way through Greece, finally withdrawing to Crete where they came under a fierce attack during the German airborne invasion, Operation Mercury. Their airbase became the primary target and was heavily defended primarily by the New Zealand battalions. After intense fighting and the famous defense of the adjacent Hill 107, German paratroopers and mountain troops eventually captured the airfield. Jack was in the middle of it all, and showing the Christian selflessness that defined his character, he was captured by the Germans when he went back to the airbase to rescue a wounded comrade.
Imprisoned at Stalag VIII-B near Lamsdorf, Jack spent three long years as a prisoner of war and forced to labourer. Ever resourceful, he eventually managed to escape with a companion, managing to evade search parties for three days before being recaptured. Near the end of the war, during a gruelling, forced winter march away from the advancing Russian lines, Jack kept his mates alive by foraging and cooking up wild nettle soup and snails along the road.
A God-Fearing Family
Returning home in 1945, Jack married his wife Elaine in 1948 and poured his heart back into the family business, building it into an international powerhouse alongside his father, Sir Harvey. He was incredibly proud of his family’s ethos, describing them as a “God-fearing family” that was “loyal to Auckland, loyal to industry and loyal to each other.”
Even as a corporate chairman, Jack remained entirely unassuming. He could be found looking out his office window at the old inner-city markets, greeting the generations of local growers and market stall owners by name, always emphasizing how crucial their diverse customer base, including Chinese growers, was to the fabric of New Zealand horticulture.
Jack passed away at the age of 89, leaving behind a family of 5 children and 23 grandchildren, his legacy lives on every time someone somewhere in the world enjoys a fresh slice of green kiwifruit.
Jack and Harvey both rest at Purewa.
