Berries are berry good business for family firm
The McFadden family’s Whatawhata Berry Farm is a ‘fullimmersion interactive destination’ — the whole idea behind dad Darien buying the property three years ago.
Based at Matangi, McFadden’s Strawberry Fields is the largest strawberry-growing operation south of Auckland with more than 500,000 plants in the ground in season. Seven years ago he took the business over from his parents who had been in strawberries for more than 20 years.
Increasingly berry producers in the Waikato have expanded into not only ‘pick-your-own’ operations but into offering special attractions including real fruit icecreams. As Darien pointed out “you can tell how well a grower is going by how many icecream machines they have”.
That’s why McFadden decided to take the whole experience up a notch and establish a pick-yourown family and Kiwiana experience on the busy SH27 straight just east of Whatawhata.
There, on 5ha, the business was established and planted in strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries, blueberries and cherries providing a production season from October to April.
As a ‘destination’ the Whatawhata Berry Farm offers a variety of family-friendly themes and entertainments intended to give the kids something to do while the grown-ups pick berries.
“We hit our straps during the Christmas season. Strawberries are the big crop and blueberries start in late November.”
Strawberry Fields commissioned a 6m-high pair of iconic Kiwi Jandals in corrugated iron by the same artist who built the dog and sheep buildings in Tirau. The giant footwear was craned into position and set in concrete. As the highway authorities would not allow these to be erected near the road-edge, they have been located in a prominent place on the property.
Other Kiwiana-themed entertainments include a Lucky-dip Kiwi-bird treasure hunt which requires kids to locate all the numbered Kiwi Birds in the orchard on the treasure map, giant outdoor chess and draughts sets. Whatawhata has gone plastic-free and uses bio-degradable cardboard punnets on all products they produce.
While Darien will focus his time running the main Matangi operation where the business packs more than 1 million punnets of strawberries annually, son and daughter Cody and Gabrielle — who recently completed a degree in management at Waikato University, will see to the day-today operation at Whatawhata.
“I’m really pleased how the pick-your-own and ice cream operation is going. No matter where it is people will drive to it. We’ve had calls from people from Auckland who have come down for the day. We’re really busy. At times strawberries have outsold bananas in the supermarkets.”
However, creating a public access to the berry farm turned out to be a challenge and bringing the entry off SH27 up to NZTA’s standards cost around $250,000. Official opening was over Labour Weekend last year which was achieved with a temporary permission.
The Whatawhata Berry Farm and Kiwiana destination is open Tuesdays to Sundays until the end of April depending on supply.