Half a watermelon for $48 - is this Wānaka delicacy NZ's most expensive?

Friday, 6 January 2023

Watermelon may be synonymous with summer, but $15 a kilogram has left an unpleasant taste in the mouth.

When an out-of-season watermelon was being sold for $10 a kilogram in Auckland – or $100 for the whole fruit – the outrage made international headlines.

Months later, a supermarket in Wānaka was selling the New Zealand-grown product for $14.99 per kilogram.

On Thursday a chunk of the fruit was on sale a New World in the tourist town for $47.94.

At $14.99, it was $6 more expensive per kilogram than a central Wellington store of the same supermarket chain.

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By comparison, Countdown supermarkets in Auckland and Wellington on Friday had watermelon at $6.99 per kilogram on Friday. According to Countdown online, it was $7.50 a kilogram to deliver watermelon to a Queenstown address.

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Foodstuffs, which owns New World, said the price of fresh produce was “extremely dynamic” and could change on a daily basis in its stores.

Spokesperson Emma Wooster said while the price of watermelon at the New World Three Parks in Wānaka was $14.99 on Thursday, on Friday it had fallen to $11.99, and as New Zealand-grown watermelons come into season they expected the price to continue to drop.

The price of fresh produce could be affected by factors such as weather, seasonality, how far produce travels and whether it is on special at the time, Wooster said.

“We’re currently at the start of the NZ watermelon season, so we do expect the prices to come down in-store as the season gets into full swing.

“While the price of produce may fluctuate from store to store on a daily basis, the price of NZ grown watermelons are very similar across New Worlds in the South Island at the moment.”

Supermarkets came under fire last year after it emerged they were taking more than $1 million in excess profits every day, according to the Commerce Commission.

Consumer Affairs Minister David Clark also took a swipe at supermarkets’ competitiveness last month when he announced rules to force them to prominently display the “price per weight” to make it easier for shoppers to compare prices, saying they had been “fleecing hard-working Kiwis for too long”.

Wānaka holidaymaker Jan Swann wasn’t the one to spot the $14.99 per kilogram watermelon, but wasn’t surprised by the difference in prices around the country.

She said people always expected to pay more when they went on holiday to tourist hotspots.

“They can charge what they like, I’ve accepted it. We went in on Christmas Eve first thing at 7am for berries and the shelves were empty,” she said.

“We stock up on essentials in Dunedin before we go, we know the prices will be disgusting, but you don’t have a choice.

“It’s not fair on the locals, the prices are aimed at rich people … it’s total money grabbing. When my daughter lived here she said she had to live on noodles.”

A $102 watermelon in Auckland – around $10 a kilo – caused a stir in June. Prices in Wānaka have exceeded that.

But Wooster refuted the claim, saying it’s “simply not true” that prices are deliberately increased in tourist towns.

“Wherever they are in New Zealand, our locally owned and operated stores are working extremely hard to provide the very best value they can, for all their customers, every single day.

”Despite the inflationary challenges, stores in the Foodstuffs co-operatives have held price increases to customers below inflation, and below supplier cost increases, for seven months in a row.

“We’ll continue to fight against inflation to help ease pressure on household budgets throughout 2023.”

Horticulture company LeaderBrand, which aims to produce 3000 tonnes of watermelon this season, said that while the fruit was technically in season, harvesting had been delayed by bad weather.

Gordon McPhail, general manager of farming, said “Gizzy [Gisborne] normally has a long, dry summer and we tend to worry about not having enough water. This year, it’s the opposite – we’ve had double the amount of rain we normally have at this time.

“We’ve also had very low sunshine hours. Like everyone, we’re all really disappointed with this weather, it’s a really tough season.”

He said the team was watching the watermelon patch daily. They expected the first harvest to begin mid to late January and to be available until the end of March.

According to Stats NZ’s food price index, the cost of fruit had risen by 17.8% for the year ending November 2022.