I was in the CERES main office this week and there lying casually in a bowl on the lunch table were a couple of feijoas. I ate one thinking how lucky I was. A few minutes later down in CERES Honey Lane market garden our head farmer, Meg Stewart, took me aside to a waist high greeny grey bush and plucked off a couple of feijoas. First crop for this year, she said proudly handing them over. Soon after I got back to the warehouse and Josh, Fair Food’s produce buyer, took me into the cool room to show me the feijoas Paul Haar had just delivered from his Archie’s Creek farm. I looked over my shoulder half expecting a fully grown man in a feijoa suit to jump out from behind some bins of fujis. Josh asked if I was okay. I said I was fine but for the rest of the day I was on the lookout for signs of some sort of feijoa rapture.

I forgot about it until I got an urgent text this morning from Liz, who manages Fair Food’s social media. Each year Liz announces the beginning of feijoa season on Instagram and Facebook. Usually there are a few excited responses from ex-pat Kiwi’s but nothing special. This year it’s been different, now I won’t say feijoas broke the internet Kardashian-style but Liz reported a large and immediate response on Instagram including a unusually high number of emoticons.

Something is happening here. A couple of years ago when Cyclone Yasi wiped out the banana crop I tried to introduce the concept that feijoas were the new banana. I thought then it was pie-in-the-sky but now I’m not so sure.

You can find feijoas in the Fruit Section of the webstore.
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