Bay of Plenty Business News March/April 2017

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12 BAY OF PLENTY BUSINESS NEWS March/April 2017 MyFarm offers first BoP gold kiwifruit investment Rural investment specialist MyFarm has released its first opportunity for investors to own a stake in a gold kiwifruit orchard after an exhaustive two-year hunt for the right property. MyFarm is seeking $6.3 million from investors to purchase the 16 hectare property at Paengaroa, the eastern end of the Tauranga Eastern Link. Expressway Orchard Limited Partnership is the third kiwifruit orchard syndicate to be established by MyFarm in the past two years. However, chief executive Andrew Watters says it has taken two years to secure a quality gold kiwifruit orchard with the key attributes investors are looking for. “It is a very competitive market for quality orchards with established gold vines. We’re thrilled to find a property that is established but also has a development component that will add value for investors.” The orchard which is adjacent to the Te Puke golf course comprises 9.83 canopy hectares already planted in Gold; 2.9 cha of Hayward (green) and 3.3 cha of G14 (green) which will be replanted in gold over the next five years. Paeangarora is a prime kiwifruit growing area, favoured for its climate, low altitude, flat contour and free draining soils. And Andrew Watters says the conversion to gold kiwifruit will add a nice ‘twist’ for investors in the form of a forecast 11.3 percent development margin. Expressway Orchard will be leased and managed by current owner DMS under a 10 year contract. DMS, is one of NZ’s largest kiwifruit and avocado management companies with more than 100 orchards in the region under its management. Mr Watters says investors are hungry for access to the kiwifruit sector, and praised Zespri’s careful management of export supply and kiwifruit variety licences. “The accelerating export demand for kiwifruit, with the gold variety leading the charge, Expressway Kiwifruit Orchard at Paengaroa. Mossop’s Honey meets new challenges Rheumatism and a desire to put the frighteners up some noisy partygoers played a big part in establishing one of the Bay of Plenty’s largest family honey businesses. Mossop’s Honey celebrates 70 years this autumn, with roots that started on the other side of the Kaimais, migrated across to the Bay, and now have hives spread throughout the Central North Island and East Coast. Back in 1947 Neil Mossop’s father Ron who worked at Waharoa dairy factory had heard about the positive effect on rheumatism that bee stings could have, thanks to the venom’s ability to ease inflammation of joints. Ron was well ahead of his time, with researchers today, only starting to learn more about how the venom increases anti-inflammatory hormones in the body. “Dad decided to get a few hives and subject himself to stings while he looked after them, and sure enough he found the stings did help him with his joints,” says Neil. The cheese maker and boiler operator turned backyard beekeeper soon learned bee hives could also have a positive effect keeping other unwelcome ailments away. “It was the days of the 6 o’clock swill, when people would drink as much as they could and then pile out of the pub, and continue to drink at home. We had a bunch of rowdy people who would always congregate at the end of our street once the pubs shut. Dad asked a beekeeper if he could put a few hives there – it soon dealt to the noisy parties!” Ron’s passion for beekeeping grew and he leapt at the opportunity in the early ‘50s to buy 800 hives off a Te Aroha beekeeper. “In those days that was a lot of hives, enough to be a fulltime business and he bought the lot for 22 shillings and 6 pence.” Today a single hive can be worth up to $1000. Most honey collected then was predominately pasture-based, but Ron’s passion for variety and innovation shone through when he tracked down the source of a sweet tasting, light coloured honey that appeared in his hives. “They followed the bees right up into the top of the Kaimais to find the source which turned out to be Tawari. It’s less common today, but the Tawari tree had a flower that yielded this beautiful butterscotch-type honey.” Over those early years, Ron worked hard building relationships with land owners and farmers through Waikato, running hives in return for a generous supply of honey. In today’s increasingly competitive honey industry it is a tradition Neil and Wendy continue, along with making hive rental payments that provides valuable income for farmers on some of the tough hill country around the East Coast and Central North Island. Ron had also been retailing Mossop’s Honey around shops in the region, and in 1961 the family opened their store on the site they continue to occupy today at Tauriko. Ever innovative, Neil, like his father Ron, was also the first beekeeper in New Zealand to commercially provide hives for kiwifruit pollination, moving eight or nine hives at a time around on his Ford V8 truck. He was a pioneer working with the families who planted the first kiwifruit in the Bay of Plenty. “Today we cart 400-450 hives at a time on a 44 tonne truck, travelling and returning in a day to places Dad would have stayed overnight at, given how rough the roads and routes were back then,” says Neil. These days, kiwifruit pollination is still an important part of the business, but not as significant, given honey’s increasing value. Those honey sales expanded well in the ‘80s, after Neil and Wendy bought the business from Ron in 1981. This also included their first exports. “Hong Kong was relatively easy to export to in those days and today we export to 10 countries with Asia and the United States really strong markets for us,” says Wendy. Their pioneering ventures continued as they closely followed early research on Manuka honey done by the late Professor Molan at Waikato University. “Until then field honey and Tawari were the main honey types, Manuka was a bit of an unknown, seen as a little different,” says Neil. A group of beekeepers however saw Manuka’s potential and formed the Unique Manuka Factor association which Mossops was part of. Meantime Wendy witnessed the antibacterial power of Manuka when she saw how it cured an ulcer her mother had struggled to have healed conventionally. “I saw how the skin around the ulcer was softened and that was the seed of an idea to develop a skincare range using Manuka.” But it was not until 2007 when she met a cosmetologist capable of developing a genuinely natural range of products that saw the birth of the company’s “Natrual” range. “The ‘80s really became the decade where Manuka was discovered and better understood,” she says. Wendy and Neil recount the many challenges the business has faced over the years, from the Whakatane earthquake, to PSA in kiwifruit, but perhaps the biggest one was learning varroa had infected New Zealand beehives in April 2000. Today Wendy and Neil are proud to see their own family taking over as the third generation, with sons Ryan and Duane employed, and youngest son Joshua working alongside the is testament to the investment the industry has made in R + D.” He says MyFarm has experienced strong interest in the Expressway Orchard investment opportunity since launching it recently. Neil Mossop bee keeping. business with his own bee operation, Beelieve Enterprises. Their daughter Charity has also been closely involved in the business. Wendy says their focus on providing a consistently high quality product, with minimal stirring or treatment has lent Mossop’s Honey a different texture from most commercial honeys, and earned them many dedicated customers in New Zealand and around the world. Meantime the innovative “Investors want access to the growth of the kiwifruit sector and to the Bay of Plenty region.” couple are looking forward to the forthcoming launch of another honey-based product for winter, a specially developed cough elixir that promises to help ease the usual winter colds thanks to Manuka’s now well-known healing properties. “We feel we have been very blessed to work where we are, in the business we are in and to have our family close and involved, with plenty of challenges and opportunities,” says Wendy. 1947 - 2017
BAY OF PLENTY BUSINESS NEWS March/April 2017 13 Can the Government protect us? TECH TALK > BY TONY SNOW Director Stratus Blue Ltd. Tony@stratusblue.co.nz | Mobile 022 122 8669 T 07 777 0010. Yes – you are being attacked. It is not a matter of if, but when, and that when is a lot of the time! Thanks to technology, it is becoming easier to do business and the risks with interacting with other entities, businesses or consumers is on the rise. As we do business together we can take for granted that we are safe to deal with each other in this way. Of course, at the same time, global hackers are becoming more sophisticated with even some of the bigger name hosting services being breached. The Government is investing 22.2 million from Budget 2016 to set up a new national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). Security systems help prevent and monitor the issues and it is amazing the frequency of attacks that you may not know about! Not only can your IT provider assist, depending on your risk profile, to put measures in place but the government is also assisting in this fight. Civil Defence exists for natural and physical disasters and plans for disaster recovery, and as the Ministry of Business and Innovation points out ‘’The Government is investing 22.2 million from Budget 2016 to set up a new national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). The CERT will be responsible for monitoring, tracking and advising on cyber security incidents or attacks affecting New Zealand. The national CERT will be solely dedicated to cyber security and will be the central component of New Zealand’s cyber security architecture. We are also pleased to have the STRATUS project on our doorstep. ‘Security Technologies Returning Accountability, Trust and User-centric Services” in the Cloud is funded by the New Zealand Government through the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) and is led by the University of Waikato’s Dr Ryan Ko. STRATUS is a six-year, $12.2 million cyber security project, This ground-breaking project will create a range of security tools, techniques and capabilities which return the control of data to Cloud computing users. The overall aim of the project is to empower users to be able to control the security of their data in the Cloud without the need for third parties. The project also aims to develop tools and services which can be commercialised. Work on STRATUS began in 2014 and is being carried out by a team of leading Cloud security researchers and practitioners from the University of Waikato, the University of Auckland, Unitec Institute of Technology and the Cloud Security Alliance. Government and international teams are working on cyber security, multinational organisations are invested heavily in security both physical and cyber, so the question remains as a Bay of Plenty business, are you protected? What happens when something does happen? Are you insured against attack or harmful loss and how long will it take to get your business back up and running? Stratus Blue recommends a business continuity plan which includes a disaster recovery Exciting news from summer entrepreneurial programme Top students from Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology and University of Waikato spent the summer in Priority One’s Ignition co-working space taking part in an innovative entrepreneurship programme. Project Ignite invited students from across a range of faculties to apply for scholarships to complete the programme over a 10-week period. Participants were provided with a unique, tailored experience and the tools they needed to validate their ideas and create a sustainable business. Local entrepreneur and CEO of Eurofins Bay of Plenty, Tina Jennen, was the expert coach on the programme, providing advice and support to the student entrepreneurs. “The programme included group and individual activities, guidance by start-up coaches, inspirational speakers, practical sessions, access to specialist mentors and help with applications for seed-funding.” At the completion of the programme, the students pitched their ideas to project sponsors and local businesspeople. The businesses they developed included: • EDM Productions – leaving a legacy through documentaries of the personal stories of elderly or ill people • My Good Neighbour – an online platform that connects locals that need an odd job done with people looking for casual work • Homebuilding.co.nz – discover your dream home with thousands of housing plans, all in one place • Fashenz – an online platform that helps NZ’s emerging fashion designers • The Capture Collective – a full service one-stop-shop to access professional photography • In Touch – a real time scheduling app for small contracting businessses to help them stay better organised • The Plunge – new technology which enables a water gun to fill in under two seconds. Project Ignite is jointly funded by Priority One and members Ballance Agri-Nutrients, Plus Group Horticulture, University of Waikato and Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology. plan and knowledge of time and process to get business back up and running. Depending on your industry, with Easter weekend coming up, this may be a good time with minimum disruption to test these plans. Don’t leave it all to the Government! Talk to your technology department about these plans, the downtime you can afford and the risks you wish to take and how to insure and protect against them. Local company releases emissions-reducing cement A Mount Maunganui-based cement company has taken lessons from ancient Roman concrete to create and launch a low carbon footprint cement that helps reduce CO 2 emissions. HR Cement Ltd managing director Chris Hall said the company has managed to develop a more environmentally friendly cement called Eco-Cem that has significant benefits when compared with standard cements. “EcoCem has the potential to reduce the carbon footprint of concrete utilised on construction sites by 15-30 percent and set a New Zealand benchmark for low carbon concretes in New Zealand,” he says. The company looked at concrete mixtures used by the ancient Romans and, after applying modern cement manufacturing techniques, engineered a new cement using Pozzolan from the central plateau of the North Island. In addition, compared with standard cement Eco-Cem gets stronger as time goes on, increases abrasion resistance, improves durability and permeability and has a high resistance to the harsh climatic conditions experienced in New Zealand. Mr Hall said one of Eco-Cem’s greatest strengths was that it was far more environmentally friendly than the existing production of Portland cement, which is energy-intensive and results in higher global greenhouse gas emissions. www.stratusblue.nz *Read the full article in this paper, or on our website 1 in 5 Kiwis Are Affected By Cybercrime Each Year TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS FROM GROUND TO CLOUD
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Bay of Plenty Business News March/April 2017

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