Jack and Carrie Lum are celebrating 50 years of love, family and hard work among the fruit and vege cartons, but their livelihood is under threat from big business

From humble beginnings, grower-turned-green grocer Jack Lum has spent half a century cultivating a thriving business through hard work and quality produce.

Jack Lum turns 77 this year and his business - Jack Lum Fruit and Vegetables in Remuera, Auckland - turns 50. Yet his work ethic, just like his passion for produce, hasn't waned, even as other small businesses close up shop as they come under pressure from the corporate big boys.

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Jack and his wife Carrie opened their Remuera business in May 1970 and their current shop - in a converted bank - in 1988. But just across the road is a New World and Jack says supermarkets are killing off businesses like his. He remembers when there were four green grocer shops in the Remuera village; today, his is the last one standing and one of only a handful left in Auckland.

"It's all sort of hairdressers, beauty stores and banks and real estate agents. Because the fish shop's gone and the butcher's gone," Carrie says.

"I think I'm one of the two or three really genuine ones left, because when the supermarket opens they've got to get their business somewhere, so it's mainly smaller shops," Jack adds.

"If it wasn't for the Asian supermarkets I reckon the supermarket's pricing would be a lot dearer. The Asian markets are keeping them honest, because you know around the country there's no small fruit shops left. They've killed off the whole lot, and they'd love to kill us as well".

Jack's father Lum Young Hoy came to New Zealand from China in 1927.

"They're from, in those days it was called Canton but it's got so many different villages. Ours was called Zhongshan which is just across the border from Macau," says Jack.

"We were growers, that's all they seem to know when they come over from China".

During the Japanese invasion of China, which began in 1937, around 200 Chinese wives and their children took refuge in New Zealand.

Jack's mother Lee Way Hing came here by boat as part of the War Refugee Scheme in 1939, escaping the political upheaval just before the Communist Revolution. Jack was her second son of four boys who were all born in Auckland…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details