Your Red Kiwi Guide: How It Compares to Its Colorful Cousins

If you love green and gold kiwis, then you’ll adore their red cousins! These fruits blush reddish-pink in the middle and have a sweet, tropical, candy-like flavor. They’re a new addition to The FruitGuys’ fruit boxes for offices, fresh from our friends at The Flavor Tree Fruit Company.

Red kiwis have a unique color inside, but that’s not the only way they differ from their gold and green counterparts. Let’s dig into the red kiwi’s history and health benefits, its differences from green and gold kiwis, and how to get your hands on some for a juicy snack at your desk.

How to Tell Green, Gold, and Red Kiwis Apart

Green, gold, and red kiwis are all different types of the same fruit: kiwi, or Actinidia chinensis. But there are a couple of things that set each variety apart. Here’s a quick rundown from Miguel Robles—a Los Angeles-based produce buyer for The FruitGuys—and Roman Rosales, a sales associate for The Flavor Tree Fruit Company. Flavor Tree represents the Hanford, California-based kiwi grower New Excelsior Farming, which grows red kiwi and two varieties of gold kiwi, W45 and Excelsior Gold.

Fuzz

Green kiwis, like the popular Hayward variety, have fuzzy brown skin. Gold kiwis have less fuzz, so you can see the yellow-green skin beneath. Red kiwis are smooth and fuzz-free.

Color

Green kiwis have green flesh inside. Gold kiwis have yellow flesh. Red kiwis also have yellow flesh—but with pretty red or pink striations around the seeds.

Aroma

Ripe green kiwis smell subtly sweet. Gold kiwis have a nice tropical aroma with floral notes and hints of tropical fruit like pineapple, passionfruit, and guava, and red kiwis have an even stronger tropical smell.

Flavor

Green kiwis have a balanced sweet-tart flavor. Gold kiwis are sweeter with tropical notes. And red kiwis are even sweeter and juicier, with a creamy texture and a candy-like flavor. Miguel told us that he can often taste pineapple notes in gold kiwis and sweet strawberry notes in red ones.

“I was blown away the first time I tried a gold kiwi. I remember never wanting to eat a green kiwi again!” Miguel joked. “Having a kiwi with smoother skin that tasted sweeter was amazing. I tried red kiwi for the first time at a produce conference in 2019, and I thought that the hint of red inside was super cool.”

Miguel was thrilled to partner with The Flavor Tree Fruit Company to bring the red kiwi to The FruitGuys fruit boxes.

Colorful Kiwis at a Glance

A Quick History of Red Kiwi

All kiwis are native to China, including red ones. The first green kiwis made their way to New Zealand with a fruit-loving missionary in 1904. They arrived in the US in the 1950s thanks to famous fruit importer Frieda Kaplan and picked up the name “kiwi” in the process (before, they were called Chinese gooseberries or melonettes).

Red kiwis were much slower to arrive on the scene. Today, there are many different varieties of red kiwi, but the Hongyang variety was probably the first. Plant breeders in China created it by experimenting with wild kiwi seeds in the 1980s.

The Health Benefits of Red Kiwi

Kiwis, including red ones, are most famous for their boatload of Vitamin C (around 120% of your recommended daily value). It can help your immune system fight off colds and other illnesses. Kiwi fruit is also rich in blood pressure-regulating potassium—and don’t count the seeds out! They hide alpha-linolenic acid, a type of omega-3 fatty acid that’s great for heart health and may have other health benefits, too.

How to Eat a Red Kiwi

The entire red kiwi is edible, including the skin, so there are multiple ways to eat it.

“I like to eat the skin of a kiwi, out of pure laziness,” Miguel said. “You can eat a kiwi just like an apple.”

Roman has a different method: “My favorite and easiest way to eat a kiwifruit is to cut the kiwi in half, grab a spoon, and scoop around the perimeter of the kiwi between the internal flesh and skin to scoop out one big bite of fruit!”

Here’s a short video demonstrating both options with a classic green kiwi.

Red kiwi is also delicious in fruit salads, sliced onto yogurt bowls, or blended into smoothies. If you feel like getting creative in the kitchen, you can even swap it in for green kiwi in this easy kiwi tart recipe, which is great for an office potluck.

How to Store Red Kiwi

Keep your kiwi at room temperature until it ripens. (It will give slightly to the touch when it’s ready.) If you don’t want to eat it right away, you can pop it into the fridge to keep it fresh for a few more days. A very firm, unripe kiwi will stay fresh in the fridge for up to two months.

Where to Buy Fresh Red Kiwi

Here at The FruitGuys, we occasionally add red kiwi from The Flavor Tree Fruit Company to our Harvest Mixes and Season’s Best Boxes when it’s in season. Both of these fruit mixes include a wide variety of farm-fresh seasonal fruit, perfect for offices or homes. We also offer bulk deliveries of red kiwi and other fruits nationwide. Visit our Marketplace by the Case page to learn more about our bulk options or request a delivery.