Nz-Ers’

Why Pawpaw Is Not

No. 1 Dish

THE export of papaya (or paw paw) from the Islands to New Zealand is a very limited trade.

Australia can, of course, grow her own. Not everyone likes the fruit, but it is popular with many Euro peans in the Islands.

In the United States, Hawaiian pawpaws bring from 30 to 90 cents per pound weight—the growers re alising a profit of about 4 to 6 cents per pound. The industry is being expanded by a company which has just established a 50-acre, 25,000tree orchard on Hawaii Island, from which it expects to harvest 150,000 lbs of pawpaws per month, when the quick-growing trees reach full bearing.

One reason why paw-paws are not seen much in New Zealand is that they do not travel as well as bananas, oranges or pineapples.

They do not taste the same after they have travelled, either.

Pawpaws grown in Queensland, shipped all the way to Melbourne, for example, and eaten there, are a sad disappointment to people who are used to picking them off the tree in the Islands and eating them at once.

Hawaii is fortunate in having 150 million Americans within trading distance because in those 150 mil lions there is a proportion who can afford pawpaw at 8/- a pound and who will pay correspondingly high prices for other exotic foods.

The number of people in Aus tralasia who desire or who would

pay for these luxury foods is small.

AlmoSu all of the fruits and nuts produced in Hawaii for the US market can be grown also in Aus tralia —but the average Australian could not care less. Which probably proves nothing except that the food habits of the Australasians and the Americans are poles apart.