Women in agribusiness – Claire Burgess

Crunch time

ByCheyenne Nicholson

Sometimes it takes life being tossed upside down to get on the right path. When a Southland dairy farmer was diagnosed with breast cancer, she had to reevaluate her life. And when it came to the crunch, the red-haired farmer launched Ginger Crunch Caravan.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Ginger Crunch Caravan specialises in ginger slices. While the delicacy has certainly graced the menu of the funky little retro-styled food and coffee caravan at one stage, the name was born from owner Claire Burgess’ journey with cancer.

“In 2017 I found a funny lump one day, followed it up and was told I had grade 3 invasive ductal carcinoma. It was serious but treatable and kicked off the year from hell but ultimately is how Ginger Crunch came to be,” Claire says.

Claire, her husband Deryck and their two children, Tessa and Olivia, had made the move from Waikato to Southland to further their dairying careers just 12 months before. Hit with a serious diagnosis and facing a challenging year of chemotherapy, a mastectomy and radiation, Claire says she’s still heartened by how the community rallied around them and supported them.

“Coming into a new community is always hard,” she says.

“We were lucky that we had family living down here already, but we found that the farming community hustled around us as well, and oddly, I think the whole thing made us more a part of the community.”

Hailing from the Waikato, dairy farming wasn’t on her radar. She grew up on a sheep, beef and deer farm on the Napier-Taupō highway until her teenage years when her family moved to Taupō. She quickly got involved in the hospitality industry, which she took to like a duck to water, obtaining a chef’s apprenticeship and at just 19 years old,

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As well as running Ginger Crunch Caravan, Claire Burgess is a marriage celebrant and enjoys being part of couples’ special days.

was offered a job to run her own kitchen.

“After that, I was all set to head off on my OE, and then one night in the pub I met my now-husband. I still went on my OE – I just never got further than Australia,” she recalls.

Deryck was dairy farming in Rotorua at the time and upon returning from Australia, she put on her red bands and joined him. The following years saw them progress through dairy farming jobs in the Waikato. She even did a stint working with racehorses but quickly decided 3am starts weren’t for her. As fate would have it, she landed a job at the popular Workman’s Café in Matamata, winner of New Zealand’s Best Café award in 2005 and worked there as head chef for a number of years before the couple decided it was time for a change.

“In 2016, we decided to take the plunge and move to the South Island. We’d gone through the ranks in the Waikato, had two kids and were battling through low payout years, so we thought if we were going to get ahead, the South Island would be the place to do it. We had family down there,

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Southland farmer Claire Burgess launched Ginger Crunch Caravan after being diagnosed and undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

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and looking back now it was the best decision we could’ve made,” she says.

Six years on, they are now working as contract milkers on a 670-cow farm and come moving day will be moving to a 770-cow farm within the same business.

“I had always said to Deryck that I wasn’t ever going to be just a dairy farmer and working on the farm. I always wanted to have my own thing, but sort of never ended up pursuing anything. Then we got the breast cancer news and for lack of a better term, it gave me a boot up the bum,” she says.

While laid up during chemotherapy and hanging out for something to focus on outside of the farm and family, she got to thinking which led her to the thought of a food truck when she spotted a cute little caravan in Nelson that was set up perfectly.

“I’d never really thought of something like that before. The idea of café ownership had never appealed to me, but a food truck is just me, myself and I, with no staff to deal with and running things how I want. I rang up a friend and said, ‘do you want to go on a road trip to see this caravan?’,” she recalls.

So with no hair and feeling worse for wear from chemo, Claire, her friend and her friend’s father, who is caravan-savvy, headed off.

“It was perfect and it gave me something to work towards and focus on for the following months. I sat on her for six months until I felt well enough to launch her on June 1, 2018,” she says.

When it came time to put everything in place to turn her idea into a reality, there was a bit more to it than just finding the right caravan. That bit was easy. With an existing business in their farm business, she decided to set up Ginger Crunch on the side of that for ease of management and finances. A few chats with an accountant friend to check things off there and gain the correct compliances for a food and beverage truck later and she was almost there.

“A really key part was researching and finding a supplier for coffee. I found a local ROAR coffee company based in Lumsden. They have a neat story behind them and decided to go that route. Because the venture was small and I had no major financial outlay to get started, it was fairly straightforward to get set up,” she says.

Since then, the caravan and Burgess have been going great guns. Her cancer was indeed treatable and while closely monitored every six months, she’s in great health. It’s been the perfect way for her to embrace her hospitality experience and have a business that works easily around the farm. Operating during the summer season means she is free to rear calves and helping out on the farm at the busier times of year has been invaluable.

“I’ve really tried to make my business work around me, it has to be flexible around me, otherwise, it stops being as enjoyable. I always want this little business to be fun and bring me joy,” she says.

In recent weeks the Ginger Crunch Caravan has been doing the rounds in Southland for the Rural Support Trust’s ‘Cuppa’s on us’. It has been a great way to support her local community, which has been hit hard by unseasonal drought and created much uncertainty for the year ahead.

“I like being able to do my bit. It’s a wonderful way to connect with people. People so appreciate these kinds of days and it’s been amazing to see farmers actually having open and honest conversations with others, rather than bottling it up,” she says.

She got into the food truck business just before they became popular, so her timing couldn’t have been better. Her main point of difference is her ability to do food and coffee, which means she can do everything from parking up at field days for coffees and catering for weddings.

“Social media has played a huge role in the success of Ginger Crunch as has the ROAR coffee community. We all flick work each other’s way, which is really nice,” she says.

Like many businesses, covid meant her little business took a hit during the first round of lockdowns, but the local community has continued to support her business when restrictions eased.

“I tend to be quite picky about what work I take. When I first started, I parked up roadside at a local raw milk place. I did that 3-4 days a week for a month, but it wasn’t viable sitting there waiting for

In recent weeks the Ginger Crunch Caravan has been doing the rounds in Southland for the Rural Support Trust’s ‘Cuppa’s on us’. Claire Burgess in her happy place.

Claire Burgess, daughter Tessa, husband Deryck and daughter Olivia, are contract milkers on a 670-cow farm in Southland.

customers. I’m mindful of my own health and of not overloading myself, I don’t want Ginger Crunch to be all-consuming. I just want to enjoy it,” she says.

In recent years, she has also added marriage celebrant to her list of side hustles. A natural-born talker and people person she says she gets a kick out of marrying people and being part of their celebrations.

“Deryck and I have been married for 15 years, so I hold marriage in quite high esteem. It’s really cool to help others. It started with a friend asking me to become a celebrant, so I could marry them and since then, I’ve been a celebrant for a few other friends and the odd ‘professional’ gig as well,” she says.

She is an active member of Dairy Women’s Network and Rural Women NZ and says that being involved in those networking groups is so vital.

“Being part of the rural community has definitely played a role in the success of Ginger Crunch. I’ve had a lot of custom and support from the rural community, and I’m so grateful for it. I think anyone involved in farming who’s looking to set up a side business should be part of those networking groups because you gain so much from the networks and connections and you make some wonderful friends,” she says.

She says that the past five years since her diagnosis have been ‘a bit of a ride’ and she’s really had to rely on her resilience and her family to get her through.

“Deryck and the girls have been my rock. Deryck in particular, has always been aware I was never going to be ‘just a typical farmer’, it is unfortunate that it took cancer to give me a boot up the bum to get me going with Ginger Crunch, but it’s nice to have something good come out of what was a truly challenging time,” she says.

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