Business Showcase

Tastefor Travel Sparks Journey with Travelling, Talent and Tempeh Tempeh

By Kat Duggan Jim tannocK

matt Hellriegel is an ideas man, well known around town as one of the brains that brought ritual Café to life in 2012.

After selling up in 2015, Matt and his partner Tati Märtzová left the comforts of Blenheim to travel, passing through much of South and Central America and spending time in Dublin and Slovakia, which is home for Tati. The pair returned to Marlborough at the end of 2017, and have been bringing national and international performers to play at their intimate gig venue, The Plant, ever since. The Plant is also home to their second business venture, Found Tempeh.

The couple began exploring the possibility of producing tempeh commercially while they were overseas, during which time Matt’s dad had been experimenting with making it at home in Marlborough. “When we got back I learned from [Matt’s dad] how to make it and I thought ‘I can do this, and people would love it’, and suddenly I was making it,” Tati says. Traditionally a soy product, Tati has been getting creative with new flavours and ingredients, and the couple have been selling it at The Nelson Market on Saturdays and the Marlborough Farmers’ Market on Sundays. The venture was one of many ideas floated during their two-and-a-half-years overseas. “That was the first time in our lives where we didn’t really have any plan and that’s exactly the way we wanted it, that’s why it was exciting,” Matt says. “There were about three months where we almost didn’t utter the word Ritual, we didn’t really talk to people about it and we managed to just drop it and move on, which was great. Eventually we started telling strangers about the cafe and then not long after that the ideas for our next project started, and there were a bunch.” While the pair knew moving back to New Zealand was a high possibility, they hadn’t locked in Blenheim as their return destination. With the art of making tempeh mastered, and a vision to attract travelling musicians to Blenheim as they passed through to or from the Cook Strait ferries, the pair began looking for a spot which had both a commercial kitchen, and a cosy front of house space. They came across their venue in The Warehouse car park, formerly known as Gecko Junction, and set to work making tempeh on a commercial scale and making contact with potential acts. Since opening in July, the couple have hosted around a dozen performances, generally those with an alternative music style. “It’s the sort of music that we enjoy and there’s a small scene for it here in Blenheim … we like to host these lesser known acts but we’ve been lucky enough to be able to host some really well established musicians also,” Matt says. The small space generally means tickets are limited and sell quickly, but it makes for intimate shows where the artist is on the same level as the audience. “It’s great because these bigger acts sell out, so for them it feels great, for us it feels great and for the people it feels great because they feel like they are part of something,” Tati says. The small scale of the venue also enables them to host their guests well, and it makes event promotion a less onerous task as the pair both juggle multiple other ‘day jobs’, Matt says. “With all of our stuff it’s manageable, we don’t have to go crazy every working hour managing promotion and things, we just sort of let a few friends know and whisper it through our social media sites and a cozy crowd will usually turn up,” he laughs. Vegan meals are on the menu for guests, and an eclectic range of seating creates a sense of homeliness. The ultimate goal for the couple is to bring people of all walks of life together. “Live music is incredible because it has the ability to sort of knock people into being present, and what a great thing that is … I think watching a person get up in front of people and believe in themselves is exciting, and can be a truly powerful thing to behold. To be able to experience that with a range of people, people that are seemingly strangers; bringing folks together, I love that”.

The Plant theplantexists Found_tempeh