Off the Top of My Head
By Paul Murray
A group of eight Karameans travelled to the Tasman region on September 26 and 27, 2018, to visit artisan food processing and production facilities in Nelson and Upper Moutere with the view to establishing similar enterprises in the Karamea region.
The idea is to leverage off our special location and unique growing environment to create a range of value-added processed food products grown here and marketed under a “Karamea” brand to create local employment, improve our economy, promote our region and enhance the resilience of our community in the process.
The tour was coordinated by Nick Dalgety, Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) Senior Advisor for Economic Development and Partnerships Nelson, the group visited cafes, the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT), Little Beauties feijoa and kiwifruit processing plant, the Moutere Artisans group, Peckhams Cidery and Orchard and Thorvald Cheese to gather information and ideas, make contacts and to seek inspiration from what others are doing.
Also on the trip were Development West Coast (DWC) Business Development Manager, Helen Wilson, David Stedfast from Gloriavale Christian Community and Jane Lancaster, a food production consultant from CatalystCatalyst and Dr Joanna Fountain, Senior Lecturer in Tourism at Lincoln University.
The tour began at Deville Café where owner Geoff McLean talked us through the pitfalls and peaks of the café business and discussed how he sources and selects food products like Dobbo’s Manuka Smoked Hot Sauce (made in Westport by Dobbo) for his café, which has been operating for 15 years. Geoff shared his knowledge and experience freely and with considerable candour and served us up a pretty damn good coffee as well.
Geoff Maclean Shares his experience of operating a cafe in Nelson for the past 15 years with the group from Karamea and the greater West Coast.
Dobbo’s Hot Sauce…Made in Westport
Deville Cafe Staff…Waiting to clean tables after the customers leave….
Just around the corner was the Bridge Street collective where we met with the manager Christine Donaldson, who spoke about the collective power of collaboration and cooperation in getting businesses connected and sharing their respective skills for mutual benefit. She also discussed the process of establishing a weekly market that showcases local produce and artisan products and enables producers to access customers in a cost-effective and fashion that also allows customers to meet the producers and processors of the goods on offer at the market.
Consumers are becoming increasingly interested in the provenance of their food and seeking quality products made by people passionate about their fare rather than mass-produced industrial brands and are prepared to pay a premium price of products of a high standard. The need for such products to be of premium quality was a consistent theme discussed by the presenters. The products need to be top notch to stand out in the market, create word-of-mouth promotion and encourage repeat purchases and brand loyalty from consumers.
Then it was back to school with a stop at NMIT where we met with chefs and educators who briefly outlined food-safety compliance, gave us a tour of their facilities and information about the courses and programmes they offer to do with food, food handling, processing, packaging and marketing. We then had a lovely lunch prepared and delivered to the table by hospitality students at the institute as robust discussion about food continued over lunch.
We purchased some ingredients from the market and returned to Nick Dalgety’s home near the Botanical Gardens to make pizza and cook them on his backyard pizza oven. This was also an excellent opportunity for further discussion and brainstorming about the potential for Karamea to have its own brand and range of products that add value to our raw produce and enable a higher return to the growers and food processors living in Karamea by selling our products into more affluent urban gourmet food markets.
The next day, we headed for Moutere. Our first stop was a fruit processing facility that makes Little Beauties dried feijoa, and golden kiwifruit slices dipped in chocolate…We had to sample quite a lot of these for the purpose of product research and quality assurance…Everyone agreed, the products were superb and very delicious!
Owner/Manager Tristan Wasney gave us a frank and detailed talk about the challenges of establishing such a venture and the costs and challenges involved in both producing the product and then getting it to market. We were also able to have a look at the way food handling is done on a commercial scale and also the process of preparing and packaging the final product.
The Old Moutere Post Office was the next stop. There we met with Andrew Sutherland who discussed the establishment of the Moutere Artisans, a collective of artists, food producers and craftspeople who market their wares and fares at the repurposed Old Post Office, which now has a retail shop, café and gallery that displays and sells locally made products instead of stamps and envelopes.
Cameron Woods dropped by during Andrew’s presentation and invited us for lunch at his business Tasteology at the Kahurangi Estate winery cellar door where we were treated to a fine food meal of locally produced cheese, meats, preserves and bread, well matched with wines from the Kahurangi Estate range.
Peckham’s Cidery and Orchard was our next stop, there we met owners Alex and Caroline Peckham and toured both the orchard and the cidery and had a look at the process of making, bottling and labelling their cider and how to package and market the product. Alex openly discussed the challenges of establishing an artisan brand and competing with inferior mass-produced products that are no match in quality but are cheaper on the market. He offered several means of overcoming market resistance to price and shared his frustrations about competing in a market that is somewhat price focussed. The Peckham’s Cider range is an excellent example of a quality product that is far superior to other mass-produced ciders on the market, and we had to sample quite a few cans to be sure of this.
The award-winning Thorvald Cheese was our last stop, and we caught up with our old friend Franzis Kaner, the head cheesemaker at Thorvald. Franzis walked us through the facility and showed us how their sheep’s milk cheese and yoghurt is made, the food safety procedures, quality control and the process of ageing and then packaging and marketing the products. Considerable sampling of the various cheeses was also necessary at this facility, and all agreed, their range was exceptionally good!
The participants were all very impressed, inspired and motivated by the people we met and the facilities we visited and plan to also travel to Canterbury later in the year to visit more food-processors and make additional contacts with people who may be able to assist with the process of establishing similar enterprises here in Karamea.
Each venture we visited, the speaker received a lovely gift set of True Blue Organics products from Hamish and Margaret Macbeth’s business, which demonstrates well that Karamea can produce a quality value-added product and establish a viable business here. Thanks to Hamish and Margaret (and Ema Franken for preparing the gift boxes).
The more food we can produce and process here, the more people we can employ, the more responsible we will become for our own food and financial security and the more resilient we will be in the event of a civil-defence event that takes the road out. If Karamea is able to produce its own food and have a supply of processed and preserved food in stock to cater to the needs of the local population, the better we will cope with such an eventuality.
Thank you also to Nick Dalgety from MPI for coordinating the tour, Helen Wilson from DWC for assisting. Both DPI and DWC contributed financially to defray the cost to participants of the trip, thank you for that also.
After almost 14 years at 
West Coast Economy Benefits From Hidden Tourism $ Yields
Off the Top of my Head
By Paul Murray
There is quite a lot of talk at Councils and in the local media on the West Coast lately about the need for the tourism industry to be self-sustaining and not to rely on local government funding and ratepayer subsidies to support it.
Currently, tourism is without question best game in town for the West Coast. Traditional extractive West Coast industries like forestry, mining, fishing and dairy are in decline or don’t really have any additional growth potential. The people employed in those industries may choose to spend some of their wages on the Coast, and they certainly do, but much of that money is spent elsewhere and doesn’t really benefit the local economy.
Tourism, however, caters to visitors to the region and those people spend a lot when they are here. The come to visit the Coast and see the spectacular natural environment and scenery that we sometimes take for granted. When they are here, they purchase accommodation, meals, fuel, food; they spend on activities, events, visit coffee shops, purchase souvenirs…this is good for the local economy and local businesses as it enables them to operate and also to employ staff. The tourism industry supports businesses that are not directly tourism related and inadvertently helps keep Coasters employed. The supermarket staff, the butcher, the local mechanic, the service station workers, the waiting staff, the baristas, the information centre teams, the local hairdresser, the newsagent, dairy owners and many more are supported by tourism money directly and indirectly.
The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has determined the average daily spend for a visitor to the West Coast is $248. This figure is calculated by dividing the total visitor revenue by the number of visitors. Resident West Coasters do not support the local economy by spending this much per day, but we directly benefit from the capital introduced to our economy by tourists.
Jim Little, CEO of Tourism West Coast, said, “The latest MBIE figures show West Coast number 1 for percentage growth of expenditure at 14% to $577 million up $9 million year-to-date March 2018. The national average is 9%.” He added, “In terms of GDP contribution, tourism now number 2 on the Coast at $172 million second only to dairy on $234 million. That’s up from number five 5 years ago.” This shows the importance of tourism to the West Coast economy and also just how fast it is growing and demonstrates its potential to bring further economic prosperity to the Coast.
Many of the services and facilities we enjoy as local people would not exist without tourism. Local cafes, restaurants, service stations, pubs, museums, activity providers and scenic attractions would not be available to local people without the financial support derived from tourism. Without tourism the quality of our respective lives and the range of facilities and services we enjoy would not be available without the income tourism provides…they just would not be financially viable.
Tourism also encourages local governments to improve infrastructure to cater to the visitors. So our roads, public facilities like toilets and waste-management systems, electricity, Internet services, telephone networks etc are all improved because of tourism, the money tourists introduce to the economy and the demand for services and facilities they create.
To cater to tourists, accommodation providers must also purchase all sorts products, materials, furniture, whiteware, electrical appliances, print brochures, make signs produce advertising material etc, and all of those requirements support other non-tourism related businesses, like; furniture shops, linen suppliers, cleaning products, gardening equipment, fuel, hardware and building supplies, food and beverages, groceries and much more. All of this also supports the local economy and enables us to have such shops and businesses and suppliers available to people living on the Coast.
While tourism-related businesses may not cater directly to West Coast residents, the quality of our lives are significantly enhanced by the money visitors bring with them when they come, and the people working hard to cater to them when they are here should be supported in every possible way and the small amount of subsidisation that West Coast tourism currently receives from the Councils (via rate payers) goes a long way to maintain and improve the quality of life for Coast residents and helps keep services and facilities open and available to our people and us employed. The World Trade Organisation estimates that tourism generates an indirect contribution to the local economy equivalent to 100% of direct tourism expenditure. Please consider this when discussing tourism and the subsidies the industry receives for the benefit of us all and future generations.
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Paul Murray is a Karamea-based tourism business operator and owner of:
Rongo Dinner Bed & Breakfast: http://www.Rongo.nz
Karamea Farm Baches: http://www.KarameaFarmBaches.co.nz
Karamea Connections: http://www.KarameaConnections.co.nz
Published: The Westport News May 8, 2018
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