This packaging – which senses when fruit is ripe and changes colour accordingly – was developed by HortResearch around 2004. HortResearch was a type of Crown entity called a Crown research institute. In 2008 it merged with another Crown research institute, Crop and Food, to form Plant and Food Research, a new Crown research institute. In 2011 there were eight Crown research institutes. These were created 20 years earlier to be run with a greater focus on commercialising research and working with industry. It was hoped that commercialising research would provide an income stream for the institutes other than government funding.