Scope Summer 2011

Annabelle White : Local skills, extra value | Sir Robert Jones : Show-pony shame startup

SUMMER 2011

Waikato’s business edge

Top crops The best of Waikato’s export food industry

Red tape wrangle: Untangling export regulations The milk of human ingenuity: Open-access dairy projects

1 SCOPE SUMMER 2011

Inside : Win an iPad 2

summer 2011 In this issue: Cream of the crop

All wrapped up Is regulatory red tape holding Waikato food exporters back?

By Dawn Tuffery PAGE 12

“It is a New Zealand first.”

The prize of milk What’s in the price of milk? Quite a bit once you turn it into high-end powder, and an $11 million project just outside of Hamilton will help producers do exactly that.

Fulfilment

By Paul Kendon PAGE 22

Hunter Filling Systems has found export success filling everything from chocolates and Le Snak packs to trays of sea monkeys.

By Vicki Annison PAGE 25

SCOPE SUMMER 2011 3

?

To get the most valuable business e c i v Ad ine advice, go L straight to the experts.

Get the best expert advice on energy, transport, waste, community, carbon, HR and more, from some of New Zealand’s top sustainability experts. They’ll answer your question within two business days with relevant, up-to-date information and resources.

Through the Sustainable Business Network, non-members can now submit one burning question for free, while members have on-going access.

Get valuable sustainable business advice now.

Visit sustainable.org.nz to submit your question.

Thanks to our generous sponsors EECA Business and NZI for making Adviceline possible.

summer 2011 Hand picked to succeed

Managing editor: Katie Foley

Zealong oolong is making a splash in Taiwan – and black tea’s next on the menu.

By Vicki Annison

Assistant editor: Nina Fowler Journalists: Vicki Annison, Paul Kendon, Dawn Tuffery

PAGE 8

Contributors: Karlene Davis, Infovision, Sir Robert Jones Photographers: Brooke Baker, Anne Challinor, Aaron Sami Web: Dave Chisholm, Crescendo Multimedia Designer/media coordinator: Rebecca Walthall

FROM THE DESK OF

Manuka Boosta’s Hayden Pohio is successfully mixing family and business.

By Dawn Tuffery PAGE 32

OPINION

Root revival For one Waikato forestry block owner, a ginseng side dish could be worth up to $4000 per kilogram.

By Dawn Tuffery PAGE 14

Betting on bilateralism

Brazil is booming. For the right companies, NZTE’s Karlene Davis says, South America’s giant offers bountiful opportunities.

PAGE 20 Sir Robert Jones doesn’t suffer fools – or the timid.

PAGE 28

INFOGRAPHIC

Infovision presents a map of New Zealand’s current and proposed free trade agreements.

PAGE 18 BNZ Partners Centre cocktail function Institute of Directors breakfast Gallagher Great Race Masquerade Ball PAGE 30

PAGE 17

LAST WORD

Food critic Annabelle White has come a long way from weekend waitressing.

By Nina Fowler PAGE 11

Cover photograph by Aaron Sami

General manager: Jodie Youmans Publisher: Tim Collins Contact: Scope Magazine www.scopemagazine.co.nz Feedback: editor@scopemagazine.co.nz Advertising enquiries to Jodie Youmans jodiey@in-business.co.nz ISSN 1174-4057 Published in partnership with IN-Business Media www.in-business.co.nz

GALLERY

What will upcoming free trade agreements mean for companies in the Waikato?

By Nina Fowler

PROFILE

Design: Richard Thomson Scott Thomson Media

Palate Restaurant’s Mat McLean talks life and wagyu steak.

By Nina Fowler PAGE 34

SCOPE SUMMER 2011 5

Eat, drink and be merry We knew we’d be spoiled for choice when we started planning an edition featuring the Waikato’s food and beverage sector.

Win an iPad 2

6 SCOPE SUMMER 2011

NewZealandStockLibrary.co.nz

welcome

Our bright future as a food-producing nation depends on the value we add to our products.

If there’s one thing New Zealand does well, it’s food.

The Waikato region is a star performer, from dairy, meat and crops to fine wine and speciality snacks.

It’s a good thing to be good at.

To borrow a quote from Waikatoeducated Annabelle White (page 11), “whether you like it or not, most of us need to eat three meals a day”. Food shortages in less lucky parts of the world, and growing demand for protein from China’s and India’s middle classes, mean the future for New Zealand exporters is bright.

Just how bright depends on the value we can add to our products. We’re a small nation; we can’t feed the world. If we pin our hopes on exporting ever-greater quantities of basic ingredients, we’ll inevitably undermine the very things that underpin our success as a

We’re changing our name – and giving away an iPad 2 The next edition of Scope will be published under a new name and we’d like your ideas. What’s a word (or two) that captures the uniqueness of the Waikato region, or our aim of inspiring and showcasing stories of Waikato business success?

food-producing nation: clean water and fertile soil.

“Moving to the Centre”, an October 2010 report for the Ministry of Economic Development, sums it up well. We need to stop selling food ingredients to others who profit “massively at our expense” by turning them into something people want to eat. We need to start doing it ourselves.

“The maths is pretty simple,” Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee said, in his response to the report. “A kilo of infant formula is worth ten times the value of a kilo of milk powder – so we know which one New Zealand should be selling.”

The solution, then, is to develop new and high-value products, market them well and make the most of our intellectual property around producing, processing and packaging. This

All name suggestions received before 18 November will go into the draw to win an iPad 2.

It’s easy to enter. Just write your suggestion and why you think it would be a good fit for the magazine on our Facebook wall (search for “Scope: Waikato’s Business Edge” to find our Facebook

edition is filled with Waikato entrepreneurs and innovators who are doing exactly that. Some, like machine-makers Hunter Filling Systems (page 25), have been doing it for decades. Others, like Maraeroa C’s Pureora ginseng, are just getting started (page 14).

We also take a look at the role of free trade agreements (page 17) and regulatory red tape (page 12), that perennial gripe of business lobbyists.

Thanks to those who’ve sent us feedback and story ideas.

We want to keep making this a magazine you want to read from cover to cover, so stay in touch.

Enjoy the summer.

NINA FOWLER ASSISTANT EDITOR

page). Or you can email us at editor@scopemagazine.co.nz.

It’s one entry per person for the draw but feel free to send us as many suggestions as you like – the more the merrier.

Keep an eye on our Facebook page for updates.

in association with Scope magazine is a quarterly publication focused on leading edge technology and business innovation in the Waikato region. Our purpose is to provide insights, connections and inspiration to business decision-makers. This is a unique initiative supported by partners with a shared goal: to stimulate and support Waikato business growth. We acknowledge our foundation partners – Wintec, BNZ, Mainzeal and Gallagher – and associate partner Prolife Foods.

Foundation Partners “To be an integral part of the community, we partner with many different organisations and businesses throughout the region. Scope is about showcasing innovation in the Waikato and providing credible insights, connections and inspiration to our businesses, industry groups and organisations. Having a wide range of stories to inspire people and stimulate growth in our region is key to our commitment to this magazine.”

Mark Flowers, CEO, Wintec

“Large, small or in-between, Waikato BNZ Partners offers businesses the support they need to grow and prosper. We believe there is no substitute for local knowledge and experience, which is why we provide access to local business specialists who can help you expand into new markets, manage foreign exchange, or simply enhance your cashflow – amongst many other things. Because, like Scope’s publishers, Bank of New Zealand is dedicated to the growth and success of the Waikato business sector.”

Phil McKinstry, Managing Partner, BNZ Waikato

“Mainzeal has a proud history of constructing some of New Zealand’s most iconic buildings and the Waikato is no exception. The Gallagher building, Tainui Novotel, Braemar Hospital and Wintec House are fine examples of Mainzeal partnering to build a better Waikato. We support Scope in stimulating business and innovation in the Waikato.”

Finlay Irwin, Manager, Mainzeal Waikato

“We’re strongly of the belief that this particular medium reaches all organisations with a passion for doing the best in business, and we’re delighted to be involved. We see sponsorship as one of our core principles. It’s our commitment to the community. We’re always delighted when we find a sponsorship that fits all our criteria: the community, our staff and our stakeholders.”

Margaret Comer, Corporate Services Executive, Gallagher Group

Associate Partner

“Prolife Foods is a major supplier of quality food products in the Waikato region. We believe, as we obtain our revenue from the greater community, we have a social and commercial responsibility to invest back in that community. Accordingly, Scope magazine is a tremendous opportunity to communicate with the Waikato business world by celebrating Waikato successes and promoting topical commercial issues.“ Bernie Crosby, Prolife Foods

We also appreciate support from: New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, SODA, Opportunity Hamilton, Global Entrepreneurship Week and Blue Star.

SCOPE SUMMER 2011 7

Cream of the crop

HAND PICKED TO SUCCEED 8 SCOPE SUMMER 2011

New Zealand’s only commercial tea plantation is an ambitious $10 million operation on the outskirts of Hamilton. As Vicki Annison finds out, successfully growing oolong – sometimes described as the champagne of the tea world – is a challenging task. photographs by Aaron Sami

Zealong founder Vincent Chen refuses to compromise on the quality of his crop.

SCOPE SUMMER 2011 9

he Waikato’s fertile land has long enabled a wide range of produce to be grown.

Now, rolling green fields on the outskirts of Hamilton are home to one of the most unusual yet – oolong tea.

Zealong is New Zealand’s only commercial tea plantation. The company’s thriving 48-hectare farm in Gordonton last year produced 16 tonnes of premium oolong, an ancient variety of tea traditionally grown on the steep mountains of Taiwan and southern China.

In Taiwanese society, oolong tea is seen as a high status commodity. So much so, according to Zealong communications advisor Jeff Howell, that buying mountain land is almost impossible. He compares owning an oolong tea plantation to owning a champagne vineyard, with plantations typically “passed down through the families for centuries and centuries”.

Compared to these tea trade lineages, Zealong’s founder Vincent Chen is a relative newcomer. Vincent, 37, is the eldest son of Taiwanese property developer Tzu Chen, who brought his children to New Zealand to study. While the family was developing Hamilton’s Thomas Road and Nielsen Gardens sub-divisions, young Vincent acquired an interest in growing tea.

Zealong’s deputy general manager Gigi Crawford has worked for the Chen family for many years and remembers Vincent being told not to waste his time with the project. “We’d say ‘this is an expensive hobby that you have – playing with all your tea leaves’.” That changed when the first tea tasting came up. “We thought ‘wow, this is really serious, it can work’,” she says.

The venture got off to a rocky start. In 1996 Vincent imported 1500 tea seedlings from Taiwan but was left with only 130 after a rigorous quarantine enforced by the Ministry of Agriculture.

10 SCOPE SUMMER 2011

Commercial growing began in 2005 and the first crop was ready four years later. To date, NZ$10 million has been invested into the venture, with a tea house added in 2010 and a visitor experience launched in August 2011. The plants are harvested three times a year, in November, January and March, when the translucent new leaves emerge.

The tea is hand-picked by skilled workers from Taiwan and China who are brought into the country especially for the harvests.

In the past, Crawford says, they have found themselves caught in the middle of the immigration system. They need about 30 qualified tea pickers and processors three times a year but the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) Policy only covers unskilled workers. While the skilled migrant category allows workers into New Zealand permanently, Zealong only has 60 days work a year for them.

This year, Crawford says, the company has finally received the green light from the necessary government agencies to bring in the trained Taiwanese and Chinese staff they need.

Zealong exported 60 per cent of its crop to Taiwan last year, has distributors in North America and Canada, and is fielding new enquiries from Japan and Germany.

Howell says the company’s New Zealand branding has been incredibly valuable when marketing internationally. “The first time we went to the world tea expo in Los Angeles we thought we’d have to explain our credentials but they just got it straight away. They realised we were from New Zealand – and they trusted us,” he says.

The Japanese radiation crisis and recent E-coli and heavy metal contamination food scares have helped open new markets for Zealong, with its claim to have the world’s purest tea. The plantation’s tea is certified to the world’s highest food safety standard, ISO 22000, and the strict quality control measures required to reach compliance

have given the product traceability. Every pack of tea can be traced back to the day it was picked and the block of plants it came from.

Chen insists the tea is grown organically so the farm is currently converting to organic status, a five year process. While going organic means crops grow much slower, they produce a thicker healthier leaf with more taste. Plants in Taiwan usually have a 25 year lifespan but Chen thinks the Hamilton crops will

“We’d say ‘this is an expensive hobby that you have – playing with all your tea leaves’. That changed when the first tea tasting came up.” last longer as they are so healthy.

Zealong’s tea sells for $60 per 100 grams at premium grocery prices. Howell says they are still working on the perfect price point for the tea. “There’s a psychological barrier there [for consumers] so we’re working on plans to produce a tea priced below that,” he says. A $300,000 grading machine will help make two or three grades of tea which can be priced appropriately.

Next year Zealong will start producing a black tea after sending samples to tea experts around the world and receiving exceptional feedback. One company responded with an order for 1.5 tonnes. “We had to go back to them and say we’d only made 30kg,” he says.

Zealong are planning a new factory and future investments will see conference facilities and luxury accommodation on the plantation. If they know what’s good for them, the rest of the tea world will be watching these steps in the Waikato with interest.

Cream of the crop

Keep the knife tucked in

Annabelle White, aka the “cuddly cook”, has made fine food her business.

“The major error for so many people in the creative industries is to think that just because you’re great at creating recipes, you’ll therefore be successful.

It’s absolute rubbish.”

Robert Trathen

Hamilton-educated Annabelle White, once a lowly waitress, is now one of New Zealand’s most successful food writers. She tells Nina Fowler about her love for the food business and how to avoid acting like a buffoon at swanky corporate lunches.

When did you realise you wanted to – and could – turn your passion for fine dining into a career?

When I was 15, while still at school, I got a weekend job at the Montana restaurant in Hamilton on Victoria Street. I just loved the warmth and the humour and that whole spontaneity of good food, good times, good laughter.

And okay, it wasn’t pasta fettucine, more like Chicken Maryland, but I just loved it.

Later it became clear to me that if you wanted to write about food you could. But it’s very difficult to make a living out of food writing as such. For many years I was writing at night and teaching full-time at a high school, just to support my interest.

The major error for so many people in the creative industries is to think that just because you’re great at creating recipes, you’ll therefore be successful. It’s absolute rubbish.

What you need to do is talk to the people you’re working for, deliver 150 per cent and work out what they want and almost anticipate their needs. It’s not about you sitting there writing about the history of pesto but maybe it’s talking to a pesto company and saying ‘look, let’s do some new flavours, let’s do some different things and here’s some recipes using pesto and here is how we can communicate that to your customers’.

You ran business etiquette classes. How did that start?

In the line of work that I’m in, I’m very lucky and I go to a lot of very nice dinners where there’s fine wine and food. Over the years I became increasingly appalled at the level of behaviour of some of the people that would be coming to these events, often journalists. I thought ‘ooh, there’s a market here, people obviously don’t know what to do’.

The biggest error most people make is the way they hold their knife.

You never hold a knife like a pen. You tuck it in!

This is 2011, it’s not the Victorian era, and so how you hold your knife is not going to be the most important thing. But you can appear very savvy, very sophisticated, very erudite and very smart but if you suddenly pick up a knife and fork and start behaving like a buffoon, everything falls away.

Commodity exports are a big part of the Waikato economy and the wider New Zealand economy. Do you think we need to make more of an effort to add value to our food products?

Dairy farmers are true foodies because they’re passionate about developing great produce with the best possible ingredients and the best possible conditions and getting the best possible prices.

It’s all about making sure that we think of ways of putting that extra value here by employing local people and using local skills. Whether it’s developing websites, having the best possible asparagus website in the world, that’s a possibility, or doing things where you are working with local producers and making things better. For example, developing blueberry syrup with our lovely blueberries, so we don’t have any waste or excess products.

The food business is great because it resonates with people. Whether you like it or not, most of us need to eat three meals a day. My whole reason for getting up in the morning is transferring and communicating good food. Good local food, seasonal food, at affordable prices – that’s what I’m doing but there are so many possibilities for so many different people to do things. I think it’s exciting.

SCOPE SUMMER 2011 11

Cream of the crop

All wrapped up For some exporters, it’s easier to fly overseas with a frozen steak in their suitcase than deal with the paperwork to ship the stuff.

Is red tape a necessary burden?

Story by Dawn Tuffery illustrations by Rebecca Walthall 12 SCOPE SUMMER 2011

xporting is something many food and beverage producers aspire to, but it can prompt an avalanche of acronyms. Got your GREX and your OAP sorted? OMARs in line with your RMPs and RCSs? (You don’t want the NZFSA calling the COPs.) While the regulation around production and exporting can be a tedious process, the multibillion dollar industry itself is vital to New Zealand’s prosperity.

According to New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, food and beverage exports have trebled in the last few decades, from NZ$6.96 billion in 1990 to $21.43 billion in 2008.

Given this crucial importance to the economy, what effect are red tape levels having on New Zealand food and beverage exporters? Some say regulations hold producers back, others that standards are tedious but manageable and will keep the value of our exports high. As the

Psa-V kiwifruit virus outbreak here shows, biosecurity also remains a global concern.

Warren Sexton manages Sexton Orchards in Ohaupo, who produce nashis for Red Ribbon brand. He is comfortable with the current quality assurance process for fruit, although it comes at a cost and is “quite strenuous” to do. The company completes a EuroGAP (European Good Agricultural Practices) audit once a year. “When I’ve done that I’m probably tireder than when I’ve done a full day’s work,” he says. This audit allows the orchard’s nashis into most countries but the fruit always goes through pre-clearance in Napier before it gets on the ship “to make sure there’s no greeblies that they don’t want”. If anything is discovered at this point, the shipment is rejected.

Waikato company Quantec specialises in high-value biologically active products from natural sources, requiring various levels of paperwork. Managing director

Rod Claycomb also considers New Zealand’s exporting regulations manageable. He finds the main red tape issues arise with the import regulations of other countries like the United States, where familiarity with tariff codes is vital in negotiating duties. “It’s a real minefield – you have to tiptoe through all the codes you could possibly apply to your product.”

Quantec’s cherry powder is a good example. “If you call it a dietary supplement, they get you with a really big tax when you’re trying to send it in. As a dried fruit, it’s half the duty. As an ingredient in therapeutic applications, it’s free. So getting all that right before you make a mistake is quite important.” Overall, he sees New Zealand as having “a fairly logical approach.”

Bernie Crosby from Hamilton company Prolife Foods has had no issues with New Zealand red tape when exporting. Like Claycomb, he finds barriers occur more in the destination

country. Crosby also wonders whether some border controls have sympathies with local industries. “We imported nuts from Australia to New Zealand and then re-exported them back.

If we sent them through Brisbane we were under severe scrutiny but if they went through Adelaide or Perth where there were no local industries, they got through quite easily.” Sometimes products originating from Australia are then rejected from re-entering the country, which he considers “an absolute irony”.

Anna Arndt from Aria Farm agrees that the current regulations are achievable once systems are established, although they require a lot of work. Aria Farm complies with all NZFSA regulations via electronic documentation and must undergo an audit every three months. However, she does find some of the regulation counter-productive.

“To take a small sample of frozen meat to Australia now we find it simpler just to hop on a plane,

which sounds bizarre,” she says.

This issue of efficiency versus safety has come to the fore lately as the proposed replacement Food Bill, currently before Parliament, draws complaints from producers concerned about extra costs, particularly in the horticulture sector.

The Food Bill covers regulations for the entire food industry, from producers to restaurants and food importers. New Zealand’s current bill has been in place since 1981 so an update is overdue. Revamping it is a complex business, however, as evidenced by the fact that the proposed bill takes almost 300 words to define food.

Simpson Grierson partner Peter Stubbs has argued the bill will introduce strict compliance requirements, increase exemption costs and impose unnecessary regulations that could stifle New Zealand’s food export industry.

But a spokesman for Food Safety Minister Kate Wilkinson

says the select committee that considered the Food Bill in 2010 recommended some minor changes to the bill that will remove any potential for duplication and increased costs that might arise. “We have a strong reputation as a quality primary producer and the Food Bill seeks to enhance that.” Onerous red tape requirements will be minimised, he maintains.

Food and Grocery Council CEO Katherine Rich believes the Food Bill has demonstrated good process, offering sufficient opportunities for industries to contribute. “In general the council supports New Zealand’s regulatory regime which we believe is constructed with the view to protecting our good reputation as a source of high quality safe food.”

Local producers seem content with New Zealand’s current balance of export regulations and safety. Despite the hassle, it seems red tape is worth the fuss.

Key GREX General Requirements for Export OAP Official Assurance Programme OMAR Overseas Market Access Requirement RMP Risk Management Programme RCSs Regulated Control Schemes NZFSA New Zealand Food Safety Authority COP Code of Practice

SCOPE SUMMER 2011 13

Cream of the crop

14  SCOPE SUMMER 2011

Ginseng roots that resemble people are considered good form, Maraeroa C chief executive Glen Katu says.

Ginseng has had a central place in Asian medicinal therapies for millennia and right now it’s quietly flourishing in the King Country.

Story by Dawn Tuffery photographs by Aaron Sami

ROOT REVIVAL T

hough it seems incongruous, the small plants nestled among several hectares of pines near Te Kuiti could well herald an innovative new export industry.

Maraeroa C is aiming to produce wild-simulated ginseng for the Chinese pharmaceutical market, growing the prized root as a complementary crop under the Pureora forest canopy. The name Maraeroa (“much hospitality”) was initially chosen to reflect the hospitable nature of the area and its ability to provide sustenance. While this project is still in trial stages, it has significant potential to do that for the incorporated society’s thousand-plus shareholders. The Maraeroa C block makes up 5500 hectares of land and is part of a wider cluster of land trusts.

Maraeroa C chief executive Glen Katu is a ginseng fan himself, and likes to steep it in a jug with manuka honey. “It’s good for your blood and gives you energy,” he says. Passionate about the project, he makes a good advertisement for the ginseng’s energising properties as he enthusiastically shows off examples of the first trials. What makes a good ginseng root? Long fine roots are preferable, indicating natural growth and higher potency, he says, while farmed ginseng tends to have thicker roots due to the fertilizer chemicals. Those with “good form” might resemble people. So far, the Maraeroa C ginseng compares well to overseas examples.

Despite its unassuming appearance, dried ginseng commands big prices in the Chinese export market – between NZ$1000 and NZ$4000 per

kilogram for quality product if it’s naturally grown or wild-simulated like the Maraeroa C trials. However, it takes between six and 12 years to mature and requires a complex synergy of growing factors.

Maraeroa C’s ginseng journey has taken time and patience. In 2002 they had forestry money in the bank and had to decide what to do with it. Discarded options for complementary crops included carbon farming, which requires post-1989 land, and black truffles, which didn’t suit the soil mix.

Consultation with family owners ensued, with ginseng and tourism ultimately topping the list of development opportunities due to employment and sustainable revenue potential.

Four years into a 10-year plan, both elements are going well. The tourism project is established and the ginseng is thriving. The idea for the ginseng crop initially came about thanks to Crown Research Institute Plant and Food Research (then known as Crop and Food Research), and their involvement with a Korean ginseng farmer interested in growing the crop under New Zealand pines.

Mapping by Crown Research Institute Scion has indicated the Pureora forest soil and climate is “spot on” for ginseng.

In 2006 Maraeroa C commenced trials at Pureora, as part of a three year Plant and Food Research programme. They planted a further two hectares in 2009. Currently there are more than five hectares in the ground, which will mature in stages.

The Ministry of Science and Innovation (MSI) funded two research and development projects in 2010 to confirm the market feasibility of New

SCOPE SUMMER 2011 15

“When they come up we’ll go ‘phew!’ We know we can grow it by hand – now we need to make it more efficient.”

Maraeroa C chief executive Glen Katu has high hopes for the Pureora ginseng trial crops.

Zealand wild-grown ginseng and how it could be managed, sold and promoted.

One of the challenges of the project so far has been the labour intensive nature of ginseng planting. Initially this involves raking, clearing, non-toxic weed spray, breaking the soil, sprinkling seeds and fencing for rabbits. However, the planting process should now be much quicker thanks to a suggestion by MSI senior investment manager Lins Kerr to investigate an existing mechanical seed drill. If this is successful, it will prove more than $35,000 cheaper than acquiring a purposebuilt machine.

C

urrently all eyes are on the drill-sown seeds which are due to germinate around November.

“When they come up we’ll go ‘phew!’” Katu says. “We know we can grow it by hand – now we need to make it more efficient.”

Co-operation with forestry leaseholders Hancock is important, and all planting is worked out in conjunction with tree age, thinning schedules and harvest dates. “To date Hancocks have been very supportive

16 SCOPE SUMMER 2011

of it,” Katu says. The undertaking requires “a lot of patience”, but is starting to bear fruit as the first trial crop starts to mature.

“Next year we will have a small trial crop of six-year-old ginseng plants – not many, as they were the early trials. If we want to see if they grow very well to age nine, we would rather leave them.”

Once the root is dried, processing is minimal. Dried ginseng in its natural form is where the value is, Katu says. “To retain the premium pricing, we have to show it’s wild.” Once the ginseng is clean and dry, it will simply be packed into a box and exported. Any second-grade ginseng can be processed easily into slices or capsules.

Early tests on Maraeroa C’s ginseng came up nil for chemicals and high for active ingredient. It also ticks another box – a natural marketing pitch. Katu was told that if the ginseng is grown under a mountain, naturally in the trees by a stream, it makes for a good international story. “I said there’s our mountain, right next door. There’s our stream. This is our forest.”

Pureora (“healing ritual”) will be the brand name, due to the area’s significant associations with healing. “Wildsimulated is natural and that’s what the

Chinese are going after in a big way. They don’t want stuff with chemicals in it to make medicines.”

Accessing the Chinese market is easy enough, he says, but the trick is extracting the best price. Maraeroa C has been consulting lawyers about the logistics of setting up a company in China. While opening a business can be as straightforward as paying NZ$50 for an online store, a reputable agent offers the advantage of connections and a presence on the ground.

“They talk about guanxi in China, which means ‘networking’. If you build those good relationships and become well-known as an honest and diligent performer, they’ll tell their friends about you, and that’s how you get to do business.”

Finding out that ginseng is included in New Zealand’s free trade agreement with China was a bonus, Katu says.

Ministry of Māori Development Te Puni Kōkiri has provided some funding for the project to research co-operative structures and intellectual property. “It’s something fresh and new,” Te Puni Kōkiri Waikato regional director Gail Campbell says. “It has the potential to increase productivity on Māori land, develop a viable export product . . . and ultimately strengthen and grow the Māori economy.” Maraeroa C held one seminar on the project in June and already has interest in the next one.

If the current trials go well, a dramatic increase in scale could be on the cards.

Katu says Maraeroa C is preparing a business investment proposal and, if it attracts an investor, could be planting 200 hectares of ginseng as early as 2013.

Katu has a number of other ambitions.

He’s just come back from hosting a Māori tourism stand at an international expo in Guangzhou, and is musing on how New Zealand might go about attracting a million or so more Chinese visitors.

More research projects also beckon – it’s been suggested that the ginseng leaf could contain beneficial compounds, as well as the root. “We’re looking at getting funding to research the leaf properties,” Katu says. Harvesting seeds for future planting is also an option.

Katu is hopeful about the future of Maraeroa C’s ginseng but also mindful it’s still early days. “We’ve got objectives that we’re meeting and exceeding. All our early predictions – pricing yield, disease – we’ve been able to manage really well but there’s still uncertainty,” he says.

“Until we do it for nine years we’ll never know.”

BETTING ON BILATERALISM New Zealand’s skills in food production are matched by our enthusiasm for free trade agreements. For better or worse, Nina Fowler writes, the countries we’re negotiating with are getting bigger.

Milk, pilots and trade What do Waikato companies think about the China FTA and upcoming deals with India and Russia?

CTC Aviation New Zealand

Dairy Goat Co-operative

What: Airline pilot training provider

What: Goat milk nutritional products

CTC Aviation’s New Zealand chief executive Ian Calvert says the impact of the China FTA is “yet to be obvious”. The company hasn’t been able to “break through the bureaucracy” of China’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) and gain approval to train Chinese airline pilots, despite strong representation from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE).

Calvert says there has been some progress with access to China’s general aviation (non-scheduled flight) market. In China, he says, “like India, they are very price conscious and we can’t compete on price alone – especially when we have to include 15 per cent GST, when many international competitors don’t have to”.

He’s hopeful an FTA with India will make it easier to maintain a working relationship with India’s equivalent regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). With the FTA as a sign of government support for interaction with New Zealand, he says, Indian airlines will also be more likely to look to New Zealand as an option for new pilots and pilot training.

Hamilton-based Dairy Goat Co-operative sends millions of dollars worth of goat milk products to China and Russia each year. Deputy chief executive Tony Giles says exports to China have increased “substantially” since 2008 but it’s hard to pin this on the FTA. “We really only launched into China around about that time anyway,” he says. “It’s pretty hard to estimate what your growth path would or wouldn’t have been when you’re on a reasonably strong growth path anyway.”

He supports FTAs in principle: for tariff reductions, to help align food safety and other regulations, and to increase engagement between countries. The co-op has no immediate plans to do business in India, but is more likely to consider it if the FTA there goes ahead.

See overleaf for a map of New Zealand’s current and proposed free trade agreements.

Established Agreements

Proposed Agreements

Qatar

$

Thailand

$

Cambodia

Philippines

Chile

Malaysia

re

Brunei Singapore

gapo

And while there’s no talk yet of an FTA with Brazil, that’s not stopping Kiwi companies from setting up shop. NZTE’s director of South America Karlene Davis provides market insight on page 20.

Sin

In 2008, New Zealand became the first OECD country to ink a free trade agreement (FTA) with China, our largest since Muldoon put pen to paper with the Aussies. We’re negotiating bilateral deals with India, Russia and South Korea, and the controversial admission of the United States (and others) to our Trans-Pacific Partnership with Singapore, Brunei and Chile.

The deals with China, India and Russia are a chance to strengthen our ties to the countries that, along with Brazil, are tipped to hold the balance of economic power in coming decades. As the economic growth of the so-called BRIC group takes off, the hope is that New Zealand’s fortunes will rise along with it.

Exports to China have boomed since the FTA was signed, from $2.53 billion in the year to December 2008, to $4.8 billion in 2010. A two-year review found the FTA was a “significant” factor in the doubling of bilateral trade over the last five years.

These opportunities aren’t without risk.

The Green Party, which supports trade as long as human rights and ecological limits are respected, is concerned the current FTA model will make it harder to regulate foreign companies’ operations in New Zealand. Trade spokesperson Dr Kennedy Graham says the party also opposes the lack of restrictions on foreign investment “hidden” in current deals.

Council of Trade Unions chief economist Bill Rosenberg has raised similar concerns about overseas investment rules. He says the current FTA model fails to adequately protect labour rights and will lock in patterns of trade, leaving New Zealand increasingly reliant on low value-added exports.

With so many major new deals on the table, it’s clear these risks – in exchange for possible riches – are ones the current government is willing to take.

$ $

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Free trade agreements – those much heralded harbingers of prosperity.

The negotiation and success of these deals is often described as a key component of New Zealand’s future position in global trade and politics.

While our economy is strongly dependent on a small number of tourism factors and agricultural exports, we have been labelled by some as the most business-friendly country in the world.

KEY

In doing so, this infographic provides an illustration of the focus of these ‘deals’, the proximity of those we have entered into agreements with (and those we have not), and the number of other trade agreements held by our new or potential trade partners.

Established Agreements

Proposed Agreements

Year Signed

Year Announced

Number of Other Trade Agreements Held By Partner

$

What deserves such praise? Is it through the quality of our agreements, their potential value, or perhaps purely the number of agreements we have and/or are negotiating? Infovision take a look at who we’ve signed up, who we are negotiating with, as well as the need-to-know details of each of these agreements.

Agreement

Number of Other Trade Value Trade Agreements m = million Held By Partner b = billion

Focus of Agreement Investment Flows

Travel

Agreement

Focus of Agreement Goods Quota/Tariff Reduction

NZ-HK CEP - New Zealand-Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Agreement MNZFTA - Malaysia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement AANZFTA - ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement NZ-China FTA - New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement TPSEPA - Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement NZSCEP - New Zealand-Singapore Closer Economic Partnership Agreement NZTCEP - New Zealand-Thailand Closer Economic Partnership Agreement ANZCERTA - Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement NZ-GCC FTA - New Zealand-Gulf Cooperation Council Free Trade Agreement NZ-Korea FTA - New Zealand-Korea Free Trade Agreement NZ-India FTA - New Zealand-India Free Trade Agreement NZ-RBK - New Zealand-Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Free Trade Agreement

Chile

18 SCOPE SUMMER 2011

Trade Value m = million b = billion

Services Access

2010

$3.85b

t an

khs Ka za

Saudi Arabia Kuwait Bahrain United A Qatar Omanrab Emirates

rea

Ko

Ch

ia

Thailand

$2b

2001

NZSCEP

NZ-HK CEP

$2.6b

ng o K

Myanmar s Lao Thailand Vietnam Philippines Cambodia Brunei Malaysia Singapore

2010

$

lia a r t s u A

2009 MNZFTA

3

$832m

$1b

AANZFTA

$9.82b

tralia Aus

$

2

2010

ore

Brunei ore ap g n i S $2.77b

gap

TPSEPA

$

ng o H

Sin

2005

$2.6b

$2.7b

NZ-Korea FTA

ASEAN

NZTCEP

$

NZ-China FTA

Ind

2004 18

NZ-India FTA $985m

7

ina

10

9

2010

ia

$

2008

Malaysia

NZ-GCC FTA

2009

Russ

rus a l e B

2007

$187.1m

NZ-RBK

1983/2011

Sources: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade: http://www.mfat.govt.nz/ ANZCERTA $15b 6 Singapore Free Trade Network: http://www.fta.gov.sg/ European Commission: http://ec.europa.eu/ C.I.A World Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/ DTN: http://www.thaifta.com/ NZ Free Trade Agreements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_free_trade_agreements/ Ministry of Economic Development: http://www.med.govt.nz/ Malaysia’s Trade and Industry Portal: http://www.miti.gov.my/ ASEAN FTA Guide: http://www.asean.fta.govt.nz/ New Zealand-China FTA Guide: http://www.chinafta.govt.nz/ For reproduction enquiries contact info@greaterthanwords.co.nz Austrade: http: //www.austrade.gov.au/

$

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opinion

Eye-opening opportunities in Brazil NZTE’s Karlene Davis writes that New Zealand has strong cards to play in South America.

Karlene Davis is New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s director of South America.

My first five months as regional director of South America for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE), based in Brazil, have been an eye-opener.

It is a vast, beautiful country filled with disarmingly friendly, proud and passionate people yet with a wealth divide, unfamiliar to New Zealanders, ever-present.

Helicopters ferry executives to work and fly wealthy patrons to upmarket malls that are open by appointment only. The prospects of a burgeoning middle class are clearly booming. But at the same time, poverty is evidenced by the homeless we see every day.

Its size and potential is nicely illustrated by Sao Paulo, Brazil’s commercial capital, where our office is based. The greater city alone has 20 million people – while the wider Sao Paulo state has an economy larger than many of Brazil’s South American neighbours.

“The prospects of a burgeoning middle class are clearly booming. But at the same time, poverty is evidenced by the homeless we see every day.”

New Zealanders are already here, and doing business. As one example, Sao Paulo state civil police, who have more than 40,000 personnel, are equipped with more than 3000 of Tait Radio Communications’ hand-held and vehicle radios, an indication of what a smart, market-leading and hard-working New Zealand business can achieve. By way of comparison in size of opportunity, the New Zealand Police has about 11,000 staff.

NZTE has physical offices in Brazil, Argentina and Chile to support New Zealand companies in the South American market. Our goal is to identify

20 SCOPE SUMMER 2011

opportunities for commercial partnerships and joint ventures between New Zealand and South American businesses, and to help New Zealand companies make productive investments in South America. New Zealand has some strong cards it can play to cater for the needs of South America’s rapidly growing economies.

Currently New Zealand has little engagement in these countries.

New Zealand’s investment and services – mainly in education and tourism – are much larger than the trade in goods. Brazil is only New Zealand’s 37th largest export market, yet Brazil is the 10th largest economy in the world and projected to be the fourth largest by 2015.

Part of that rise will result from Brazil’s hosting of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympics, and this will create opportunities for New Zealand companies. However companies often benefit more from longer term planning.

Countries in South America offer a unique set of prospective partnerships for Kiwi companies.

There is a good fit between market opportunities and sectors where New Zealand has strong capabilities, including agricultural products and services, higher quality food and beverage products, commercial aviation, marine products and services, and IT and software.

I am interested in New Zealand’s ability to link into the supply chain of manufacturing industries. Despite high tariffs for imported parts, duties may be suspended if these parts are used for further processing or in preparing other products for re-export. Brazil’s largest import category is machinery and equipment for use in Brazil’s growing industrial sector.

Attempting to establish new relationships can be challenging.

There is a language issue – it is unlikely many New Zealand CEOs speak Spanish or Portuguese, and knowledge of these languages is beneficial for doing business here.

Our industries must also adapt to a new way of doing business including new sets of legal considerations, tax and tariff structures, and bureaucratic red tape. Security is also a factor to be considered.

However for those companies that take the time to understand these markets, there are strategic opportunities for partnerships here. Brazil – which has a lot of potential with its US$12 trillion GDP and surging domestic market – is a great fit for us. Its government is pushing industrial development, and our specialised, high-tech manufacturing sector and innovative products could assist Brazil in expanding its capabilities.

Opportunities for smart New Zealand technologies and services to fill specific needs in the South American market are exactly the kind of ventures that NZTE is here to support.

The challenges are many but the opportunities for the right New Zealand companies are vast.

NZTE IS THE GOVERNMENT’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AGENCY. ITS ROLE IS TO LIFT THE COUNTRY’S ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE BY HELPING MORE NEW ZEALAND BUSINESSES GROW AND COMPETE IN INTERNATIONAL MARKETS. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT WWW.NZTE.GOVT.NZ.

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Cream of the crop

THE PRIZE OF MILK The price of milk is the source of recent tension between Fonterra and New Zealand consumer groups. Meanwhile, in the Waikato, work is under way on an $11 million project to help boutique milk producers add value to their own export products.

Story by Paul Kendon photographs by Anne Challinor

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W

hat’s in the price of milk? For New Zealand exporters, the value-add difference between ordinary milk powder and powdered infant formula can be worth up to $80 per kilogram in international markets.

Market leader Fonterra exports 95 per cent of its powdered milk production, including high-end infant formula enriched with extra nutrients. But the cost of researching and developing high-value powdered products is beyond the resources of most niche milk or juice producers.

All that is about to change, though, with a purpose-built $11 million spray dryer being built at the Innovation Park in Ruakura, east of Hamilton.

The completed plant will be able to produce half a tonne an hour of powder output from raw milk.

It’s a pretty dramatic process. Raw milk is heated

to over 200 degrees and sprayed into what looks like a three-storey tin can. The spray falls as powdered milk, which can then be processed and packaged into 25 kilogram bags.

The Ruakura plant, scheduled to open in May 2012, will be the first and only independent development spray dryer in New Zealand. While just a baby compared to Fonterra’s 30 tonne per hour capacity dryer at Te Rapa, north of Hamilton, the independent dryer will be open for smaller operators to test, develop and prove new products for export markets.

“It is not about building new companies, although that is certainly possible, it is about helping existing companies get into new markets with value-added products,” Waikato Innovation Park CEO Derek Fairweather says. “In the next five years, I wouldn’t be surprised if we have supported two or three

The Waikato Innovation Park will soon be home to New Zealand’s only independent development spray dryer.

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Derek Fairweather, Bryan Hoffman and David Shute are working to get the spray dryer up and running by mid-next year.

companies to earn more than $100 million export dollars each per year.”

The Hamilton-based Dairy Goat Co-operative, which exports millions of dollars worth of goat milk nutritional powder products, has already committed to using the plant – at least during the dryer’s first year of operations. The co-op will use the Ruakura dryer to help relieve pressure on its own dryer during the peak dairy season from August to November.

The spray dryer project has been on the drawing board since 2005. Bryan Hoffman of Hoffman Project Services Limited worked on a feasibility study for the project last year. “Being an open-access industry plant is totally unique so being involved with that is quite exciting,” he says. “It is a New Zealand first, available for any users to test their products.”

About $8 million of the total construction capital is coming from private investors. The balance is being funded as part of the government-sponsored New Zealand Food Innovation Network, which also has outposts in Manukau, Palmerston North and Christchurch.

One of the drivers of the network is to establish open-access food development facilities. In theory this should help the food and beverage industry respond more easily to consumer demands and international market opportunities.

Producing powdered products from whole milk is highly technical with standards at an almost pharmaceutical

24 SCOPE SUMMER 2011

level. As the Sanlu milk powder scandal in China showed, a failure to take food safety seriously (in this case, a deliberate failure) can have dramatic consequences.

“The level of traceability, of control and hygiene is very high. It is a difficult process – you have to make sure people, especially babies are safe,” Fairweather says. “We will produce whole and skim milk powder for the first couple of years and then develop infant formula carefully in a sustainable way.”

“In the next five years, I wouldn’t be surprised if we have supported two or three companies to earn more than $100 million export dollars each per year.”

The first task for new plant operations manager David Shute, a former Fonterra executive, will be to gain risk management certification from the New Zealand Food Safety Authority – a pre-requisite to allow product to be exported.

It won’t take too long for the regional economy to see the benefits of the project. While it was originally thought the majority of parts would need to be imported, it turns out that the $11 million

needed to build the spray dryer will now be spent almost entirely in the Waikato.

The dryer has been designed and developed by Tetra Pak New Zealand, another Waikato Innovation Park tenant.

Tetra Pak has extensive experience with spray dryers, with recent installations at Fonterra’s Edendale site and at Synlait near Christchurch.

NDA Engineering – another Waikatobased company – is working with the park on the manufacture and installation of the stainless steel equipment for this project.

Shute says the biggest challenges overall will be getting compliance and completing the plant on time and within budget. Luckily, some of the equipment is being supplied on “very generous terms”.

Auckland equipment manufacturer Technopak, for example, is supplying the critical powder-filling part as a free issue for four years after which time it will be paid for. Henri Hermans, director of Technopak (not to be confused with Tetra Pak), says the company sees the project as a long-term partnership. “Reinvesting in the development of the industry is our way of approaching the market with the future in mind.”

The Waikato already plays a key role in New Zealand’s multi-billion dollar dairy industry. With the Ruakura spray dryer up, running and helping companies develop premium products, it looks like the value of milk to the region – and the rest of the country – will continue to rise.

Cream of the crop

How did that cheese get into your Le Snak pack?

It’s a little-known fact that food containers around the world are filled using machines made in Hamilton.

Story by Vicki Annison photographs by Aaron Sami

FILMENT T Hunter Filling Systems’ machines are exported to over 25 countries and used to fill everything from hummus tubs to trays of sea monkeys.

here aren’t too many things Hunter Filling Systems hasn’t filled. The company, which uses the tagline “filled with experience”, is the only filling machine manufacturer in New Zealand and will next year celebrate fifty years in business.

Reading a list of the company’s clients is like walking down a supermarket aisle: Heinz Wattie’s, Tip Top, Griffin’s, Nestle, Turkish Kitchen, Delmaine, Hershey’s, McCain and Sanitarium to name just a few.

The company makes use of a number eight wire attitude to build bespoke equipment to suit special applications. One of the company’s more unusual tasks involved building a machine to fill a 36-pocket tray with brine shrimp, also known as sea monkeys. The brine shrimp, cultivated in huge ponds by an Australian company, can then be frozen and sold as feed to aquariums and prawn and fish farms.

Hunter Filling Systems has humble beginnings. John Hunter started the business, originally called John R Hunter Ltd, in the garage of his Hamilton home in 1962.

The company began doing general engineering work but a turning point came with the entry of plastic bottles to the New Zealand market. Unlike traditional vacuum-filled glass bottles, the semi-rigid plastic containers required volumetric filling. The technology wasn’t new but there were no local manufacturers so

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Cream of the crop

Hunter started designing and manufacturing volumetric piston fillers – and hasn’t looked back since.

John Hunter retired in 1986 and eldest son Frank Hunter ran the business from its Bryant Road factory. Current managing director Niall Fuller, who was born in Hamilton and completed a degree in mechanical engineering at Canterbury, came into the business in 1998 and bought majority shares when Frank Hunter retired in 2007. Despite the name change and relocation, the company has retained a few long-serving staff including Brian Milne, an employee for over 40 years.

Hunter Filling Systems now exports its machines to more than 25 countries, with over 50 per cent of total sales made

26 SCOPE SUMMER 2011

overseas. The company has agents in Australia, South East Asia and the United States – its biggest market.

Fuller actively participates in overseas trade expos to help get new business and maintain good relationships with his agents. In September he represented Hunter Filling Systems at Pack Expo in Las Vegas, a trade show that this year attracted a record crowd of over 25,000 visitors and 1633 exhibitors.

As well as the big names, Hunter Filling Systems has worked with a number of start-up businesses. For smaller clients, the transition to automation can be daunting.

“Someone may have been doing it for years with a funnel and a jug and it’s a big

leap to go to an automatic machine,” Fuller says.

New clients often want to be sure that, if their business grows, the filling system can grow with them, so it’s important the machines can be modified or automated at any point. “We’re very flexible in our design and changeability to different products,” Fuller says. Lisa’s Healthy Foods, now owned by Sanitarium, and Piako Yoghurt, who recently signed a national distribution deal with Fonterra, are two examples of successful companies that purchased Hunter machines at the start of operations.

Hunter Filling Systems’ New Zealand factory at Te Rapa carries a good stock of parts so machines can be serviced quickly

Hamilton-born Niall Fuller of Hunter Filling Systems has a number of plans in the pipeline, including possible joint ventures with overseas manufacturers.

and clients’ production lines started running again as soon as possible. This lack of waiting around for parts is one of the reasons the company has been in business so long, Fuller says. Some machines made in the ’70s are still being used and serviced.

When the February 22nd earthquake struck, Fuller was on site installing a machine at the Lion Nathan brewery in central Christchurch. “The floor was cracking and pipes were bursting – it was pretty scary,” he says. The brewery building, which had stood near Hagley Park since the 1850s, was severely damaged and yellow-stickered after the quake but the Hunter filling machine survived. Ten weeks later, Fuller went back

to re-commission the machine in another part of the building.

The company has a number of plans in the pipeline. Hunter has secured the commission for a machine to be used at the government-funded Food Innovation Centre in Manukau and will attend this year’s Food Innovation Expo at Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour.

In Hamilton, there are plans to expand production facilities with a new special purpose building. The company is also exploring possible joint ventures with Australian and American manufacturers – though, on this, Fuller remains undecided.

“I’m hesitant to let go but it could be a good opportunity for us to grow,” he says. “Never say never.”

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opinion

In this corner Former Employers and Manufacturers Association chief Alasdair Thompson was sacked this year for suggesting women’s working productivity is affected by monthly “sick problems”.

According to Sir Robert Jones, good old Kiwi timidity is the real culprit.

O

ver the years in conversation I’ve often branded my fellow New Zealanders as a timorous lot. There’s certainly plenty of evidence. One inevitable consequence of timidity (which some might mistakenly describe as politeness), and which anyone with a boxing background will confirm, is that it invites bullying.

We’ve seen lots of that in recent times.

Take Alasdair Thompson. In an otherwise civil discussion on equal pay he innocuously ventured the opinion that, among other things, women’s periods may be a factor in their lesser incomes through feeling low or taking time off once a month. All hell then broke out, of a nature which can only be described as bullying, by the ever-present, offence-taking faction, always on the alert for an opportunistic crucifixion of one of their superiors, namely just about everyone.

Thompson was probably wrong with his observation although I say probably as, for reasons of decorum, women feeling down because of periods are unlikely to go into detail. I enquired with my female staff who confirmed that some women do indeed have a tough time with periods.

Nevertheless, right or wrong, the furore got completely out of

“Interviewer: ‘Sir Robert, what do you say to the Massey report that the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer?’

Me: (elatedly) ‘That’s wonderful news. I’m absolutely delighted. It’s very kind of you to let me know.’”

28 SCOPE SUMMER 2011

hand and I have no doubt that its main cause, putting aside the print media’s beat-ups, was Thompson’s timidity which incited the appalling bullying and abuse he was subjected to.

Imagine instead if Thompson had suggested the opposite, namely that women take advantage of monthly periods as an excuse for days off when periods are a perfectly natural event without adverse effect. If he’d said that I’d wager heavily he’d have copped exactly the same abusive response from the same wankers, only instead they would have argued the opposite, specifically that, for some women, periods are an absolute hell.

The press created the Thompson situation as they largely do with all of their big “stories” these days, being beaten to the punch by the immediacy of real news through computers, something the Dominion Post acknowledged recently in an editorial. t was certainly déjà vu for me when the same old, always-reliable names were called to the barricades for their predictable comments. I say that because once in the 1990s I went through the same nonsense that Thompson cravenly went to ground over, only I gave them heaps back, and like all bullies they shrank into silence.

What happened was this.

A row erupted in parliament involving the joke MP Ross Meurant and a ridiculous veiled reference to Mai Chen having had it off for advantage, or some such ludicrous nonsense. Denials flowed, outrage was expressed, Mai was at her tearful best in her favourite place, namely the newsmedia, so to add to the absurdity of it all I feigned outrage on her

behalf in my weekly newspaper column published across the land, and wrote that given all the denials, if evidently nobody fancied having it off with Mai, then I would be delighted to fill the gap and give her a serve.

At that the focus of all of this nonsense shifted to me. Mai reappeared on television to preposterously say that in the light of my remarks she would have to migrate, which was bloody-well defamatory if you think about it, for although some of my exes now live abroad, it certainly wasn’t a roll in the hay with me that inspired their exodus. The Evening Post then devoted an entire front page to predictable show-off women attacking me and it was here where I parted company from Thompson and his gutless employers in my reaction.

Specifically, I gave it back to each of them in truck-loads. This induced the predictable outcome, namely they fled and the matter died.

An example: Jenny Shipley scoldingly stated that I should know better than making racist and sexist remarks. How offering to have a roll in the hay with Mai was racist or sexist is certainly a mystery as by definition it’s precisely the opposite but I shot right back (the Post boxed this response centrepiece) saying that Jenny calling me a racist and sexist was like me calling her fat, namely stating the obvious for no apparent purpose. They all shut up after these sort of responses and none of this affected my subsequent friendships with Mai and Jenny, who are both certainly not averse to a laugh.

My point is that these periodic uproars should be seen for what they are, namely press beat-ups of absolutely no importance, worthy only of light-hearted banter and great fun for all.

Sadly, these episodes are all too common in New Zealand in which people are appallingly pilloried for throw-away comments and it all becomes blown out of proportion through apologetic retreats inside of firing back, all of this fuelled by the “news”-creating newspapers. hen Helen Clark’s resignation led to a by-election in 2009, the Nats chose a new MP, Melissa Lee, to contest this safe Labour seat. In my view this was hugely unwise, solely because only a few weeks earlier Melissa had garnered a ton of attention when a foreign agency listed her as one of the world’s sexiest MPs. Thereafter she was in every female columnist and reporter’s sights, to gun down and destroy.

I speak with authority as, while I claim some expertise in boxing and office buildings,

by God I’m an absolute world authority on the madness of women.

It’s long overdue, on reflection, for me to receive an honorary doctorate for my enlightening and learned writing on this subject over the years. Indeed on further reflection, given the insight I’ve offered, an honorary doctorate would verge on insulting. Rather, my observations are Nobel Prize territory.

But I divert.

For sure enough, they nailed Melissa. A light-hearted remark at a candidates meeting about a contentious new highway, that this would have the redeeming feature of ensuring South Auckland criminals by-pass the electorate and they were on to her. Had she called for gassing Jews or the daily flogging of Māori, the reaction couldn’t have been greater. Her treatment was simply disgraceful. I’ve had Melissa on about her not kicking these fleas back but of course it’s not in her nature as like most women she’s not aggressively combative and was taken aback

with shock by the vicious cruelty she copped. I’ve not the slightest doubt had I and not Melissa said this then the result would have been laughter as Melissa meant it to be, and it would not even have been reported.

God knows I certainly have said worse in my day. For example, on the subject of South Auckland criminals I’ve proposed on National Radio that the Air Force carpet-bomb Auckland rugby league test audiences and in one swoop wipe out the city’s crime, (which it probably would) and the result, including I might add from my Auckland former rugby league test mates: laughter.

I could give dozens of similar examples.

Much the same applies to wealth, always a source of envy and thus apology and rationalisation by the wealthy. Well, bugger that.

A dozen or so years back I received a phone call from Radio NZ. Would I comment, I was asked, on a Massey University report that the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer? “Only live,” I said, learning from Winston. They hesitantly agreed and on the 4pm news it went like this.

Interviewer: “Sir Robert, what do you say to the Massey report that the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer?”

Me: (elatedly) “That’s wonderful news. I’m absolutely delighted. It’s very kind of you to let me know.”

Interviewer: (shocked) “What do you mean it’s wonderful?”

Me: (feigning puzzlement) “Well I thought you were ringing to congratulate me. Have I misunderstood?”

Interviewer: (angrily) “Certainly you have. What about the poor?”

Me: (dismissively) “Oh there’s no point talking to me about them. You need to interview a poor person for an opinion on that.”

End of interview. But of course I was suppose to apologise, or at least argue or justify it all in some

way as I don’t doubt most in my position would have done. Well, again; bugger that! Leave that to the riseable show-ponies of the Gareth Morgan ilk.

So reverting to my opening, predictably those craven cringers at the Employers and Manufacturers Association bowed to the contrived beat-up and sacked Thompson for his harmless opinion, even if it was inaccurate, or at least, overstated. I hope his lawyers take them for plenty.

We see the same thing with the Orwellian treatment of Don Brash, shamefully branded a racist for seeking racial equality.

Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples dealt with this in their typically civilised manner, arguing the need for Māori special treatment, but not so that screaming buffoon, Hone Harawira, a man of spectacularly stupendous ignorance, who doubtless after a lot of practise, for the first time ever, uttered a four syllable word, “xenophobic” that he plainly didn’t know the meaning of.

Here’s someone who justified ripping off the system as “punishing white m*********ers”, therein, like all losers, unimaginatively mimicking the West’s greatest failures, namely American ghetto blacks, who said he would not want his daughter to marry a European (first catch your European springs to mind, with apologies to Mrs Beeton) and yet who has the gall to brand Brash and his former publicity officer John Ansell as racists for promoting racial equality, an observation made even more absurd given both have Asian wives.

The media gives Harawira a ludicrous degree of coverage, notwithstanding his often startling ignorance and complete irrelevance, all because of the aforementioned timidity of people in not lashing back at his inane and offensive remarks.

The sooner Harawira’s back to holding the stop-go sign at roadworks, the better our society will be, that of course giving him

the benefit of a fairly serious doubt that he’s up to the intellectual burden of this role.

Brash has to take Harawira’s crap as part of the rough and tumble of politics, but not so Ansell. He should sue the clown for heaps and subject him to cross-examination and some heavy financial punishment.

That would soon sort him out. I certainly would put him through the wringer if he ever had a go at me with such scurrilous charges.

But again, I expect timidity will prevail and bullyboy behaviour triumph.

Nevertheless, it’s a sad state of affairs when too many occurrences which offer wonderful scope for hugely enjoyable bantering and teasing, are instead treated as some sort of threat to the nation by publicity seekers, always available to express contrived outrage.

And equally, when serious and valid propositions are broached, such as those by Brash, reasoned debate, which I credit the Māori Party for, and not noise and abuse should ensue. ut back to the point of this article. Now that the dust has cleared and a few months elapsed, does it not now strike you as utterly disgraceful that someone should be publicly pilloried and then sacked for simply venturing the partly correct view that women’s periods may inhibit their working performance?

This denouement was scandalous and its blame lies firmly with the aforementioned timidity of so many New Zealanders when confronted by newspaper beat-ups, fuelled by ever-ready show-ponies, always available to feign outrage, simply to garner publicity as compensation for their own miserable, bleak lives.

This is lowest common denominator territory whereby the flotsam of our society are setting the agenda. Shame, shame, shame.

SCOPE SUMMER 2011 29

startup gallery

John Birch (Hamilton International Airport), Hayden Dillon (BNZ)

Shailesh Mistry (BNZ), David Christiansen (Wintec), Fiona Ehn (BNZ), Gordon Chesterman (Wintec)

Emma Treadwell (BNZ), Erin Andersen (Wintec)

Finlay Irwin (Mainzeal), David Bennett MP

Michael Crawford (Deloitte), Katie Foley (INBusiness Media), Gary Osborn (BNZ), Simon Graafhuis (Gallagher)

Anthony Healy (BNZ), Michael Spaans (Waikato Innovation Park)

›› BNZ Partners Centre cocktail function

Business leaders were out in force at the BNZ Partners Centre on Victoria St for a cocktail function celebrating BNZ Waikato’s foundation partnership in Scope magazine. BNZ supports Scope alongside fellow foundation partners Wintec, Mainzeal and Gallagher, and associate partner Prolife Foods.

Speeches from Hamilton mayor Julie Hardaker, deputy mayor and Wintec chairman Gordon Chesterman and BNZ Partners director Anthony Healy were a brief interlude between conversation and canapés.

Mayor Hardaker drew attention to the Waikato’s export prowess and Hamilton as the home of top businesses and “all the things you’d want” in a city to live in. “It’s all so good but somehow the rest of New Zealand and the rest of the world don’t seem to know this.” Could Kiwi reticence be to blame?

Chesterman and Healy agreed we tend not to tell our own success stories enough. Healy also emphasised the importance BNZ places on investing in regional and rural New Zealand.

Photographs by Anne Challinor

Tim Macindoe MP, Athol Ryan (Seales Performance Stockfeed), Selwyn Mexted (Watershed Accountants), Murray Porter and Ross Hyland (Seales Performance Stockfeed)

Eric Anderson (AgriBusiness), Paul Roycroft (BNZ)

Mayor Julie Hardaker

Hayden Dillon (BNZ), Mike Pohio (Tainui Group Holdings), Anthony Saunders (BNZ)

Selwyn Mexted (Watershed Accountants), Sam Lewis (AFFCO)

Stuart Ewing (BNZ), Mayor Julie Hardaker

30 SCOPE SUMMER 2011

›› Institute of Directors’ breakfast

It was all action during September’s Institute of Directors (IoD) networking breakfast held in Wintec’s Gallagher Centre. After an inspired address by business incubator The Icehouse’s CEO Andrew Hamilton, Prolife Foods co-founder Bernie Crosby was named a distinguished fellow by the IoD. This is the institute’s highest accolade, awarded annually to members who have enjoyed successful careers as directors or given outstanding service to the IoD, their community or business.

Prolife Foods has grown from a modest start-up to be one of New Zealand’s largest privately owned and operated food businesses. Crosby said the role of a director is to protect and grow a business. “I’m humbled by this award,” he said.

Andrew Hamilton (The Icehouse), Peter Maxwell (Waikato Innovation Park)

Bernie Crosby (Prolife Foods)

Geoff Hampton (Westpac), Anne Aitken (PricewaterhouseCoopers)

Don Shirley (McCaw Lewis), Gordon Chesterman, (Wintec), John Cook (Stainless Design)

John Cook (Stainless Design), Mark McCabe (PricewaterhouseCoopers)

Charlotte Isaac (McCaw Lewis), Anne Aitken (PricewaterhouseCoopers)

Matt Glenn (Waikato University rower), Ashley vant Leven

Natalie Sangster, the face of the Great Race Masquerade Ball for 2011, and friends

David Bennett MP with Anya Nazaruk

Jackie Wheeler and Bevan Sutton with Gail Saunders and Ross Tong (Waikato University rowing coach and former Olympic rower)

Photographs by Anne Challinor

Janet Gibb (Priority Projects), Dianne Yates (Learning Media)

›› Gallagher Great Race Masquerade Ball

The Great Race Masquerade Ball was back this year after a two-year absence to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Gallagher Great Race.

The Gallagher Great Race Festival, which began in 2002, is an annual rowing regatta on the Waikato River through central Hamilton. This year’s winning titles were claimed by the University of Waikato’s premier men’s and women’s crews, who beat out rivals from Cambridge (UK), Melbourne and Sydney.

The masquerade ball was held at the recently renamed (and spectacularly decorated) Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts at the University of Waikato.

Photographs by Brooke Baker

SCOPE SUMMER 2011 31

From the desk of . . .

Manuka Boosta While out on a 33 kilometre mountain run, Hayden Pohio spotted a gap in the market – and went after it. Manuka Boosta, a spin-off from the family business Nature’s Country Gold, now supplies natural energy bars to over 300 outlets in New Zealand and exports to Japan, Australia and the United States.

As told to Dawn Tuffery photograph by Anne Challinor

32 SCOPE SPRING 2011

My background is in food technology. I got my degree in Palmerston North and had five years doing development roles in the United Kingdom, which was great experience.

Having the first New World supermarket approach me about stocking the bars was great too... I’m just back from Wellington to see about getting into some of the New Worlds down there.

Dad does beekeeping and I wanted to make something with the manuka honey, as it’s unique to New Zealand. I thought: Mum’s got this lovely recipe from when I was a kid, Dad’s got this lovely honey – why can’t I mix it all together?

I really enjoy going out and meeting people to convince them that the product is worth taking. They have a taste and realise it really is ‘the best bar by far’. I’m passionate about it – I would find it hard to sell something I didn’t believe in.

We started giving tastings at the farmers’ markets. People really liked it. Initially we were making 220 bars a day at home and selling that out quickly, so it was a case of figuring out how to do it on a bigger scale.

I started to make them at Pop’n’Good over in Te Awamutu. We grew and then came here to share a [Hamilton] factory with Heavensent Gourmet. I make what I need to make on demand. I’m selling 10 to 15 thousand bars per month and have capacity to triple that here. After that I’d need to find my own factory.

Export markets are where I’ve always intended to grow to. It’s going to be two years yet before I put a real focus on exporting though, as I want to get stable foundations laid first. New Zealand is a good testing ground to find out what products work.

I’ll never forget the first person who paid money for something that I’d made. That was one of the most rewarding moments along the way – realising I’d created something, packaged it up, utilised my studies and someone’s given me money for it. My first export order was exciting, sending two pallets of product to the United States.

Someone once told me overnight success is typically seven to nine years. I’m into my fourth year now. We’re keeping steady but we’ve got some exciting plans in the making. It’s an enjoyable ride, working with family and being in charge of your own destiny.

Managing everything can be challenging – you’ve got to be a master of all disciplines.

I’ve utilised mentors, done some training courses and used Opportunity Hamilton. I reckon if you don’t know, don’t be afraid to ask how to do something better.

SCOPE SPRING 2011 33

opinion

Just get out there and do it for yourselves Tired of big-city lights, Palate owner and head chef Mat McLean took a punt on a restaurant in Hamilton, which this year scooped a Cuisine New Zealand restaurant award. McLean, a former Wintec student, talks to Nina Fowler about fine dining, not-so-fine dining and feeding three-year-olds wagyu steak.

How does the fresh produce stack up?

We’ve got great natural resources here, great soil, fantastic weather and talented farmers. I suppose what we’re lacking is direction. Sometimes I think some of the producers should stop listening to what other people say and just get out there and do it for themselves… it’s just being brave and believing in your quality and believing in what you do.

You’ve come back to Hamilton – what’s so great about the Waikato?

It’s a really pretty place to live, we’re central to a lot of the North Island and life’s easy here. I lived in the United Kingdom for three years and around Australia, Sydney, Melbourne and Cairns. I’ve done my dash in big cities. I came back on holiday when I was living in Melbourne and I saw the building we’re currently occupying for lease. We’d been talking about a restaurant for a long time and I thought the timing was right, had a look at my potential competition and thought it would be quite a good move.

Beef and Lamb New Zealand

So you’d encourage producers to go it alone with quality niche products?

Absolutely. The market is there. There’s awareness out there of what good food really is and we’re moving away from that mass-produced nasty stuff we had during the ’80s and the ’90s.

If you’d told me six years ago that I’d be selling steaks for between $60 and $80 each in Hamilton, I would have laughed at you. But we put them on and they sell out every night. In saying that, the standard price for a wagyu steak in a restaurant is a lot higher but because we can produce them ourselves, we’re able to sell it really competitively.

We’ve got a couple of “little gourmets” at home.

Ruby’s five and Gemma’s four.

One day, I took home two massive wagyu steaks from the first beef we had processed. I cooked them for me and Naomi, just with mashed potatoes and vegetables, and I cooked sausages for the girls. And my youngest daughter, who was three at the time, said “Dad, can I have a slice of your steak?” I gave her a piece, and this continued until she’d eaten threequarters of my steak. By this stage, I was finding it highly amusing. When we put her to bed that night, I kissed her goodnight and she said “you didn’t put steak on my plate tonight.” That was the last time we ever did that – the first and the last time, actually. So yeah, they’re both addicted to wagyu beef.

34 SCOPE SUMMER 2011

Do you follow overseas culinary trends?

I’m not easily influenced by culinary trends because I have a young family and I don’t dine out in the major cities here as much as I’d like to. I do look at and have read a bit about some of the molecular stuff that’s going on and I can’t say I’m a fan. I think there’s a market out there for restaurants, for the odd one that does it. But as far as day to day dining goes, you don’t sit at home and go “mmm, passionfruit foam with sautéed goat balls” or whatever. At the end of the day, you’re going to go for a steak and some lovely fresh vegetables. Those are the sorts of things that trigger hunger for me.

IN-Business magazine features invaluable business insight, provocative opinions and highlights innovation from enterprising Kiwi businesses working at a local, national and international level.

Also published by IN-Business Media:

Scope Waikato SmartNZ Wellington Peak Aoraki

Aoraki’s Business Edge

Winter 2011

WET AND DRY

IS WATER THE NEW OIL? Jim Sutton: Free trade and farming Roundhill Ski Area & PrimePort

SIR RUSSELL COUTTS: On and off the water Fast technology: iRULE and Twisted Citrus

Migration after the Canterbury quakes: Will it last? Who will benefit?

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