Kai for Kiwis
People have a lot of different things to thank for changing their fortunes – for Reni Gargiulo it was raw fish. When Gargiulo’s father lay in Dunedin hospital with cancer she took him raw fish to give him a break from hospital food.
‘‘Maori don’t like jelly and sandwiches,’’ she says.
Gargiulo was going to Dunedin once a month and every time she went down she would take the fish to her dad and, in the end, other patients.
But the raw fish would turn out to be a lot more significant for Gargiulo than just giving comfort to her father.
Almost immediately after her father died Gargiulo found herself out of a job due to a restructuring at work. She was on her own with two teenagers under her roof.
With no redundancy and just four weeks of income up her sleeve, Gargiulo didn’t have the luxury of a lot of time to think about her next move.
She had a few skills to sell but she wanted to work for herself.
‘‘It was a difficult time. I had too much on to even think about another job,’’ she says.
‘‘I was low but I knew what I didn’t want and that was to let someone else choose my destiny. I knew I needed an income.’’
That’s where the raw fish came back into view.
It was literally while looking out her lounge window and taking in the sea views that the inspiration struck.
She had sold raw fish once before at the marae and it proved extremely popular.
Hence Kiwi Kai was born and there was no time to waste.
Gargiulo had four weeks to get things together so to help pay the bills she took on contracts for professional administration services.
The hardest thing was the kitchen and working out the costings – whether to hire a kitchen or turn hers into a commercial kitchen.
In the end Gargiulo made the decision to work from home because of the prohibitive costs of hiring a kitchen.
‘‘People were like ‘you need this, this and this’ and then they’d say ‘when do you want to do it next year?’’’ Her reply was simple – ‘‘now’’. ‘‘Everyone was quite shocked, especially my children, I think and they just helped me do what I needed to do. Everyone was very supportive. It just sort of happened.’’
Gargiulo started selling her product at the Saturday market which proved to be a roaring success so she pushed into Wednesday’s Farmers Market as well.
This proved a boon from a marketing perspective.
‘‘You talk, you hear, you listen to what’s good and what’s not so good and get tons of feedback so that was our ‘R and D’ department,’’ she says.
‘‘Any new products I trial at the markets and if it doesn’t work it doesn’t go back.’’
After a year and a half Gargiulo expanded into catering and retail through Guytons and, as of last September, with the business growing steadily, she dropped her sideline and went fulltime with Kiwi Kai.
Kiwi Kai is now a favourite among Saturday market goers but it all started with a desperate move from owner Reni Gargiulo who found herself out of a job with a family to feed. Stu Hunt reports.
And the range has grown from raw fish to include a wide range or artisan foods including crayfish, oysters, pates, chowder and, of course, pies.
Her creamy oyster and snapper pies have even managed to net Gargiulo her first New Zealand food award.
Having an accounting background meant Garguilo was focussed from the start on keeping things cost effective and not running up a lot of debt.
She deliberately limited the business to Nelson and Marlborough to identify and get over any potential obstacles so when she did expand it would be a cleaner run.
And expansion plans are definitely in the pipeline. Gargiulo now retails outside of Nelson to Rotorua, Whakatane, Auckland, Christchurch and she has had interest right across New Zealand and even Australia.
Kiwi Kai also now has its own mobile app which Garguilo says is like her office and has made it easier to grow on deliveries
Social media has also been a good gauge of how popular their food is.
With two surplus tubs of kina on her hands recently, Garguilo decided to give them away on Facebook. She posted at 6.30pm and stopped it at 10pm. By the next day the post gone viral reaching 162,000 people with 1400 shares and 1500 likes.
And the other feedback she has had has been overwhelmingly positive. Kiwi Kai recently catered for the Governor General and visiting diplomats and ambassadors at Whakatu Marae and the food was very well received.
Gargiulo states her plan right from the start was to focus on sustainability and naturalness which, in the end, has served her well.
‘‘People like our food, and we just found a niche market.’’
Her advice to anyone considering their own business enterprise is talk to industry leaders, look at what other people are doing but don’t copy it.
But in the end her advice is best summed up by her own approach.
‘‘Just go with it, what have you got to lose?’’