This is a fascinating article which points how Kiwis were actually Chinese gooseberries which somehow came to NZ. Then one of the firms renamed it to Kiwi fruit as its shape resembled the Kiwi bird of NZ. Then it just took off:
Historical consensus — as presented on New Zealand’s official history website — suggests that the first seeds arrived on New Zealand at the turn of the 20th century.
It all began in 1904, when Mary Isabel Fraser, the principal of an all-girls school, brought back some Chinese gooseberry seeds from China. They were then given to a farmer named Alexander Allison who, planted them in his farm near the riverine town of Whanganui. The trees went on to bear their first fruit in 1910.
New Zealand’s appropriation of the Chinese gooseberry wasn’t inevitable. Around the same time the first seeds were introduced to New Zealand, the species…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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