Northland Age: The risk of suspect fruit being used to piggy-back on Hawke’s Bay’s global pipfruit reputation has moved one company into cutting-edge science to thwart the pretenders, using what are effectively horticulture’s own forms of fingerprinting and DNA testing.

Leading orchardist and Bay View-based family operation Taylor Corporation has engaged Otago company Oritain to come up with the tools to prove their produce is the real thing.

Mr Taylor said: “We’ve heard of cases in China where citrus fruit has been dipped in dye to enhance its colour and labelled as being from countries such as Australia where the prices received are significantly higher. These chemicals can be very harmful to health so we want to make sure we can prove the product is not ours to avoid liability.”

Click here to read the full article from the Northland Age.