One company, one product, most of the country’s trade defences
New Zealand maintains five active anti-dumping duties. Four of them cover preserved peaches, all initiated by Heinz Wattie’s Limited. The fifth covers wire and steel. That ratio tells you something important about how New Zealand’s trade remedy system actually functions: it is not a broad shield for domestic manufacturing. It is a legal moat around one company’s canned fruit operation.
In February 2026, Commerce Minister Scott Simpson proposed a 17.78% anti-dumping duty on preserved peaches from Chinese producer J&G International Co. Ltd and directed MBIE into a second-stage public interest assessment. For importers, retailers and anyone who buys tinned fruit, this is the moment that matters.
The import surge that changed the maths
The numbers behind the investigation are hard to dismiss. In Wattie’s December 2024 application to MBIE, the company documented an 83% increase in Chinese preserved peach imports since 2022, from 1,380 tonnes to 2,525 tonnes annually. Quarterly imports rose from roughly 300,000kg in 2018 to just under 700,000kg by Q3 2024.
Wattie’s alleged Chinese producers were exporting peaches for as little as half the price they sell domestically. The company had been forced to raise its own prices while the Chinese import price fell by 1% over the same period.
This is the third time this ground has been covered. Anti-dumping duties on Chinese preserved peaches previously ran from 2006 to 2017 before lapsing. A subsequent investigation concluded in June 2023 found dumping occurred but ruled it was not causing material injury, with a weighted average margin of just 4.3%. This time the surge is steeper and the damage more visible.
Wattie’s cut its own growers while seeking protection
Here is where the story gets uncomfortable for Wattie’s defenders. In September 2025, while the investigation was already underway, the company told approximately 20 Hawke’s Bay growers their peach contracts were being cancelled. Wattie’s called it “a necessary response to an ongoing decline in demand for New Zealand-grown product, as more Kiwis opt for cheaper imported alternatives.”
The company also pointed to Cyclone Gabrielle in early 2023, saying the disruption “opened the door for more imported products.” Summerfruit NZ chief executive Dean Smith said in September 2025 that “any change in market dynamics that impacts a grower’s ability to sell their fruit for a profit in a sustainable way is a concern.”
Some orchardists are now pulling up peach trees and converting to apples. The domestic supply base Wattie’s claims to be protecting is shrinking because Wattie’s itself is shrinking it.
The free trade argument nobody wants to make loudly
NZ Initiative chief economist Eric Crampton argued in September 2025 that anti-dumping measures make it harder for retailers to secure good deals to pass on to consumers. The logic is straightforward: a 17.78% duty raises landed costs, which flows to shelf prices. The beneficiary is one company. The cost is spread across every shopper reaching for the cheaper tin.
There is also the China risk. In 2016, Beijing reportedly threatened retaliatory measures against NZ exports of dairy, wool and kiwifruit in response to a Chinese steel dumping investigation. New Zealand’s export exposure to China in dairy and horticulture dwarfs the value of the domestic canned peach industry. The asymmetry is obvious.
The public interest test is the last chance to push back
MBIE’s second-stage public interest assessment is where the government must weigh whether imposing duties is good for the New Zealand economy overall, not just for Wattie’s. This is the window for importers, retailers and consumer advocates to make submissions.
For other manufacturers watching, the Wattie’s playbook is now well-tested: document the import surge, prove price undercutting, demonstrate domestic injury. It has worked repeatedly. Any NZ manufacturer competing against cheap imports should be studying this case closely.
But for a government that talks about productivity, competition and consumer welfare, allowing one multinational subsidiary to dominate the country’s entire trade remedy apparatus should prompt harder questions than “are they dumping?” The better question is whether New Zealand’s anti-dumping system exists to protect an industry or to protect one company’s margin on tinned fruit.
Sources
- Investigation: Chinese fruit dumping far from peachy for NZ industry (2026-02-05)
- Canned peaches, canned (2025-09-22)
- Cheap Chinese peaches on Govt’s menu once again (2025-07-16)
- Initiation of an Investigation of Anti-dumping Duties: Preserved Peaches From China (2025-07-14)
- Dumped Chinese peaches under microscope as Wattie’s axes local growers (2025-09-16)