The good oil: Life comes full circle on Country Calendar.

Country Calendar revisits a producer who was ahead of his time. Melenie Parkes reports.

Mark Kerr (above) has come full circle on Country Calendar. He first appeared on the series 21 years ago with his fledgling m nuka oil business at East Cape, north of Gisborne. Now he is set to make another appearance with a venture that has flourished over the intervening years.

It was back in 1990 that Kerr first saw the potential for m nuka.

“M nuka is an anti-microbial oil. So it’s powerful at killing bacteria and fungi, particularly those bacteria and fungi which are common on the skin,” he says.

“It’s able to kill those bugs at very low concentrations and as an all-natural compound.”

After seeing the popularity of Australia’s tea tree oil, he thought he could similarly utilise our endemic plants. But he wasn’t alone in realising the plant’s potential.

“There’s two different groups that started actually – one was a M ori trust here in Te Araroa and the other was myself and a friend. And we both sort of started off separately but very quickly we got encouraged to join forces, mainly by the scientists that we were both working with,” he says.

“I suppose they knew a lot more about what battle we were up against to get a new oil into the market and to get the research done to show it was safe and effective.”

It is a partnership that has proven successful with the business selling products domestically and internationally. It has also expanded to include honey and tea through its retail arm, Natural Solutions.

“Everywhere we went with m nuka oil, people were also interested in m nuka honey,” says Kerr.

“We have our own beekeeping operation to produce the honey from the same area as where we’re harvesting for oil production.”

For Kerr and his business partners, promoting the unique qualities of the local m nuka and creating employment helps make their enterprise so worthwhile.

“I guess it’s something that we see as quite an achievement, the fact that we’re still providing jobs for families here after that length of time.”