"NZ horticulture has a great story to tell," Horticulture NZ chief executive Mike Chapman says.
"NZ’s fresh fruit and vegetables story is one of successful, inter-generational family businesses providing good, healthy food for everybody, every day.
“They use sustainable, environmentally sound production practices that look after the land for the future.
"Horticulture has been the unsung hero of the primary industries and we thought it was time people knew our story, particularly as we are going through significant growth.”
Several trends prompted it to make the video.
"The population make-up of NZ is changing and city dwellers no longer have connections with rural communities that they once might have had,” Chapman said.
“So there is not the understanding of what goes into getting fresh food onto their plate.”
Trends indicated a strong desire by consumers to both buy food grown locally and to understand what went into producing their food.
They wanted to know sustainable and environmentally friendly practices were used and people working for the food-producing companies were treated properly and paid appropriately.
"Globally, consumers want fresh fruit and vegetables from NZ because we have a well-earned reputation for providing safe, healthy food that meets consumer expectations around sustainability and the environment.
"And, increasingly, people are looking to a healthy diet to improve their overall health.
“While some shoppers will always be driven by price there are people who want to factor other things into decisions about what they buy.
"So we have given people a chance to see some of the innovative work our growers are doing, particularly on environmental aspects of their business, to bring them the freshest and healthiest food,” Chapman said.
