Fruit fight
By GARRY SHEERAN - Sunday Star Times
Last updated 09:19 06/07/2009
Starting with with a tiny pipfruit orchard and a mere handful of shares in Enza nearly a decade ago, Tony Gibbs scrapped and clawed, fought and ultimately bought his way to partial, then full control of the Apple & Pear Board's marketing arm - and the nation's apple exporting monopoly.
The monopoly was an unusual prize for a self-confessed free marketeer, but one Gibbs valued highly. If the government scrapped the monopoly, he warned then, it "does so at the peril of sending growers to the wall".
Now Gibbs, Guinness Peat Group's big hitter, is on the warpath again. In his sights this time is Zespri, controller of the kiwifruit export industry worth around $1.4 billion.
Once again he's bought an orchard - this time kiwifruit - which produces less than 1% of the nation's crop, and with shares in Zespri to match. And he's got plenty to say on monopolies, though this time with a different slant.