PurePod partners with farmers for five-star stays
With its sweeping views of Port Levy Bay and native bush, the Barnett family know there’s something special about their Banks Peninsula property.
By partnering with PurePod, they have been able to not only share a secluded slice of their paradise with others, but also generate a second income, without huge capital or workforce investments.
And it wasn’t just the family who were getting something out of the partnership, patriarch Richard Barnett said: the surrounding community benefits from the visitors by providing services and meals.
“We’re pretty pleased with how it works for our property,” he said.
PurePod is the brainchild of Southlandborn serial inventor Grant Ryan, who wanted tourists to be able to experience what they saw in the 100% Pure New Zealand adverts without having to venture to a back-country hut.
His solution was a glass box with little impact on the landscape, but it would take a couple of years of research and development before creating the current five-star, off-grid units that are now dotted around New Zealand.
As an aside, half of the founding shareholding profits from PurePod are funnelled into Ryan’s The Cacophony Project – a non-profit using high-tech tools to create a predator-free New Zealand by 2040.
The Barnett family’s Pōhue PurePod was the fifth to be set up. They had already been running a cottage on their 1800-hectare beef and sheep property, named Kaihope Farm, and a visitor suggested it would be a good location for a pod.
Barnett liked the idea of an additional income stream that wasn’t dependent on the weather.
But it was a “slow burn”, he said. Being situated an hour outside of Christchurch, the property fell under Canterbury Regional Council, which had its hands full with consents after the earthquakes.
PurePod handled the consenting process and the pod arrived pre-fabricated.
The family welcomed their first guests in December 2017 and besides a lull during Covid-19 lockdowns, “it’s been a bit hectic”, Barnett said, adding that they are fully booked this summer.
“The occupation rates have always surprised us.”
PurePod handles bookings, marketing and maintenance, which is ideal for the Barnetts, who run a busy family business with 8500 stock units over their high-country terrain.
For the most part, they were able to go about their business normally, but they tried to keep lambing and calving away from the pod, Barnett said. “Apart from that, they’re totally immersed in the farm.”
The family are, however, responsible for cleaning and maintaining a walking track to the pod and Barnett stressed that farmers involved in the project needed to understand that it was about putting people and experience ahead of money.
Barnett and his wife Clare are secondgeneration farmers on this land, and their children and grandchildren are also involved in the business.
When they became involved in the partnership, they thought it would be another asset on the farm if it was ever sold, Clare said. Or it could create an opportunity within the family for someone to take over the pod side of the farming operation.
PurePod chief executive Stephanie Hassall also emphasised that collaboration was the key to the concept’s success.
She described it as a business partnership in the form of a lease.
The land used for the pods is usually unproductive but secluded, allowing guests to feel totally alone in nature.
The pods themselves offered “minimalist luxury,” Hassall said, and they’re in 12 locations around the country. There are no hairdryers, microwaves or televisions, because “nature’s putting on a show”.
They provided farmers with an easy entry point into tourism, which they could expand on with experiences like farm tours, she said.
Around the country, PurePods have an annual average occupancy of between 65% and 77%. Some have waiting lists for summer, while others are popular in winter for stargazing.