YOUR INDUSTRY
A PROMISING START FOR MAD MELON Words by Anne Hardie
Jamin Brown is in the throes of developing a start-up business for his watermelon juice, Mad Melon, and he says he would struggle without support from The Food Factory. The Food Factory is the brainchild of Pic Picot of Pic’s Peanut Butter World in Nelson who understands the challenges faced by food and beverage entrepreneurs. He initiated the development of the purpose-built factory with four commercial-grade kitchens, chiller and amenities, plus the guidance to get a new business off the ground or expand to the next level. For Jamin, the mentoring from The Food Factory has been every bit as important as the premises as he wades through the process of building his own processing facility and establishing markets for his bright red fruit juice. A joiner by trade, Jamin has a background in the transport industry where he ran a company with several trucks delivering large sheets of imported glass throughout the country, before taking a leap into the food and beverage industry. He had sold the glass delivery business to spend less time on the road and more time with his family near Nelson, and was looking for new opportunities. Watermelon juice popped up as a possibility because he discovered he couldn’t buy it, despite the popularity of the fruit. When he investigated the possibilities of producing watermelon juice, there wasn’t enough fruit in New Zealand, and though he bought some from a local grower in summer, he needed to look elsewhere for more. Initially he bought fruit from Australia, but problems with methyl bromide and delays in December led to the fruit decaying. So he jumped on a plane to Tonga to check out watermelons there.
“I was astonished because the first watermelon they gave me was 23kg. And there were watermelon bigger than that.”
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NZGROWER : AUGUST 2020
Jamin Brown with his Mad Melon product
Tonga has the ideal climate – apart from cyclones – for the juicy fruit, which needs a brix level of around 11 and also ten days of sun prior harvesting if you don’t want them exploding from the pressure within. Jamin will continue to use local watermelon in season as well as the Tongan fruit, which will provide the continual supply through the year and also the quantity he needs for the business. Plus, it’s a way of providing employment and income for numerous Tongans, as it is largely manual labour. Several Tongan growers are now growing a combined 6ha of watermelon for Mad Melon. The fruit is shipped to New Zealand where Jamin processes it in, of all things, a former emu meat processing facility that he discovered in nearby Upper Moutere and met food facility criteria. The end product, he says, is literally a handmade juice. Each watermelon has to have the rind manually removed and Jamin worked with researchers from the Cawthron Institute as well as Massey University to get their processing right so they don’t lose any of the fruit. All the by-products have a market – the pulp is sold to a company that uses it in dried fruit bars and ice blocks, the rind ends up in dog biscuits, while the black pips are sold for the oil that can be extracted for use in the pharmaceutical industry. When The Food Factory opened its doors to budding businesses after the Covid-19 lockdown was lifted, Jamin was eager to grab the opportunity to be part of it. It was exactly what he had been looking for when trying to find
