In this paper we undertake an experimental and numerical study on heat and mass transfer analysis during drying of kiwi fruits. In the experimental part, the effects of various drying conditions in terms of air velocity, temperature and relative humidity on drying characteristics of kiwi fruits are investigated. In the numerical part, the external flow and temperature fields are studied using a commercial CFD package. From these fields, the local distributions of the surface convective heat transfer coefficients for the fruits are determined to predict the local convective mass transfer coefficients through the analogy between the thermal and concentration boundary layers (known as the Chilton-Colburn analogy). In addition, the time-dependent temperature and moisture distributions for different cases are obtained using the code developed to investigate heat and mass transfer aspects inside the fruits. Numerical results are then compared with experimental data and a considerably high agreement is obtained. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.