Pacific Islanders pitch wares
Turmeric juice, taro cookies and kava powder could hit Kiwi shelves if visiting businesses win over retailers.
Businesses from across Polynesia and Melanesia will speed-date with Kiwi suppliers hoping to have their food, skincare or handicrafts sold in New Zealand.
Twenty-five small and mediumsized businesses from Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, the Marshall Islands, Palau, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea were chosen by international trade and investment firm Pacific Trade & Investment (PT&I) to visit New Zealand on a trade mission.
The businesses showed or sold their products to consumers at the Pasifika Festival at Auckland’s Western Springs last weekend.
Tongan business owner Jessica Afeaki hoped the visit would get her handmade coconut oil skincare products on New Zealand shelves.
Afeaki completed a double diploma in marketing and advertising at Auckland’s University of Technology.
She now employs three people who help her make soaps, moisturisers and body oil in her village, Fangaloto Nuku’alofa.
The biggest business challenges she was faced with were a slow working culture, sourcing raw ingredients and finding commercial printing for packaging, she said.
Afeaki hoped to be inspired by New Zealand businesses. ‘‘New Zealand is like an oyster. There are so many things businesses here do so well,’’ she said.
Sandrine Wallez said she wanted a high-end boutique food supplier in New Zealand to stock her organic chocolate from Vanuatu. ‘‘I am here to find a market that will give a better price to the producers,’’ Wallez said.
She brought 450 100-gram chocolate bars with her to sell for $10 each during the visit.
Her Alean brand chocolate had a socially responsible business model, she said. She sourced cocoa from three islands.
She opened a factory in Port Vila a week before Cyclone Pam hit Vanuatu in March 2015 and ruined the cocoa crops.
It took a year to get the factory running again, but production levels remained low, Wallez said.
Countries that helped Vanuatu after the cyclone sent vegetable seeds to the villages so they could grow food.
This had a detrimental effect on women in Port Vila, whose income came from growing and selling vegetables at local markets. This was because when others started growing produce there was too much supply, Wallez said.
Seventy tonnes of locally grown vegetables were thrown out each week, another Vanuatu businesswoman said.
Wallez helped those women earn an income by having them process the virgin coconut oil used in her chocolate.
She hoped selling her chocolate at this year’s Pasifika Festival would lift the brands exposure in New Zealand, she said.
‘‘My producers are very excited. They are waiting for me to come back and say I have got a market.’’
Food and beverage companies Huckleberry, Countdown, Farro and The Produce Company met with the business owners in a speed-dating setting to inspect their products.
Pacific Trade Commissioner Michael Greenslade said a contract with a New Zealand supplier would be a huge financial benefit to a Pacific Island business and its country. ‘‘These people are export ready, have product and sell in their own country.’’
The visit was part of PT&I’s Pacific Path to Market scheme.