Doing business with us

HortResearch is a commercially focused Research Institute, wholly owned by the Government of New Zealand and has various accountabilities under the Crown Research Institutes Act of 1992. It is expected that we will successfully commercialise the outputs of our research programmes by forming collaborations with industry and establishing routes to market for our service.

HortResearch provides world-leading scientific research, novel technologies and innovative fruit and fruit derived products with high consumer appeal.

HortResearch is dedicated to searching for ways to improve human health, wellbeing and performance through a unique understanding of fruits, plants and sustainable production systems. It has more than 500 staff working across 10 sites in New Zealand.  As well as our well-established relationships with New Zealand corporations, HortResearch is working with an increasing number of international partners. These global research collaborations and commercial alliances are essential elements in maintaining leading-edge science and growing our business.

Our 21 science programmes, have specified commercialisation pathways, including:

• Licensing
• Joint ventures and Partnerships
• Spin out
• Fee-for-service work
• Collaborative agreement.

HortResearch integrates traditional horticultural science with new genomic approaches for the sustainable delivery of fruit and fruit derived products. Resources and capabilities include:

• One of the largest fruit gene and compound data bases globally
• World leading fruit breeding and cultivar development
• Fruit Genomics
• Crop management and fruit quality optimisation
• Integrated fruit production and insect and disease control solutions in plants
• Postharvest and process technologies
• Product formulation and identification of health enhancing benefits, novel flavours and fragrances
• Consumer and sensory science.

New Zealand can rightfully claim to be at the forefront of global horticulture.  New Zealand’s horticultural exports have grown from NZ$100 million (€53 million) in 1980 to NZ$2 billion (€1 billion) in 2003. Science and innovation has been vital in achieving and maintaining this global competitive position - HortResearch is at the core of that innovation.

New Zealand’s top five horticultural exports are kiwifruit, apples, wine, fresh vegetables and processed or frozen vegetables.

New Zealand horticultural products are exported to 105 countries around the world. Key export markets are the European Union, Japan, the USA and Australia.

Some of HortResearch’s recent highlights include:

• Net profit after tax of NZD 1.95 m (€1 million)
• Sale of ‘Hort16A’ Plant Variety Rights to Zespri Group Ltd, resulting in net gain of NZD 2.9 m (€1.5 million)
• New operating agreement with Zespri Group Ltd regarding kiwifruit breeding programmes and research projects
• New pipfruit partnership agreement
• Contribution of 100,000 apple Expressed Sequence Tags (EST’s) to the public domain database at the National Centre for Biotechnology Information in June 2004
• Completion of science review in alignment with strategic plan
• Investment from the Foundation for Research Science and Technology (FRST) Innovative Foods and Manufacturing rounds increased by 30 percent to NZD 13.4 m (€7 million)
• Approved investment in a new import quarantine facility to benefit the plant germplasm collection and support key industries through access to new plant material from overseas
• HortResearch sensor technology for pear ripeness marketed as RIPESENSE™ by Jenkins Group Limited was one of Time Magazine’s ‘coolest inventions’ for 2004.

For more information, please contact our business development team at: