Kiwifruit: Road to salvation

In five years a major new road will allow traffic to bypass Te Puke. What will it mean for the town's future? Julia Proverbs reports

'Jesus is Lord." The bright blue letters, atop the butter-yellow Harvestpoint Christian Outreach Centre in Te Puke appear suspended in the sky.
A block back from the main street, flanked by the Te Puke Hotel and McGregors Wholesale Liquor, it offers a beacon of hope to the disillusioned and downtrodden.
But in this small, rural service town its inhabitants are hoping a brown fuzzy fruit will be their salvation. In Te Puke, kiwifruit is Lord.
In five years, the Tauranga Eastern Link (TEL) is scheduled to open, giving through-traffic the option of bypassing the town centre. But townsfolk don't aim to become disillusioned or downtrodden. They say there will be no tumbleweed rolling down their streets.
Instead, they hope to bring the tourists rolling in.
Think Unforget-a-bull Bulls. Think Carterton, Daffodil Capital of New Zealand. Think Paeroa, World Famous in New Zealand. Think any small themed town that contributes to the unique Kiwi experience. And what could be more Kiwi than kiwifruit?
"We need a lot more around visually of kiwifruit, not just kiwifruit growing on vines," says Mark Boyle, who works for Focus Te Puke.
"Te Puke is recognised as the Kiwifruit Capital of the World. We need to develop that to enable Te Puke to have a broad range of products and services so that people want to come here to spend money and enjoy Te Puke."
Be it sipping on kiwifruit cocktails or munching kiwifruit jam-smothered scones, Boyle says putting the kiwifruit back into the Kiwifruit Capital of the World is the key to its future.
"We want to be thinking about it as a business district and create something with a competitive advantage," he says.
Boyle heads a strategic group established a month ago to discuss the way forward.
"With less trucks coming through the town it opens up possibilities to theme it more. The bypass is not something that's being looked on as a negative. It's being looked on as an opportunity for Te Puke to position itself."
The Rugby World Cup could provide a test case, with plans to "adopt" the Namibia team and combine festivities with a kiwifruit theme. Just what form that will take is a work in progress but the term "Te Pukenibia" has been touted.
"It will be an opportunity for the local community to get involved, an opportunity to show Te Puke off," he says.
Paul Hickson, who chairs Te Puke Fast Forward, says the immediate threat is not the bypass but the vine disease, Psa.
"In five years, if we get kiwifruit Psa under control, Te Puke will continue its natural economic growth. The main thing is retailers have to be able to provide a retail experience and keep the shops up to scratch so people don't leave town, and it attracts other shoppers."
He hopes plans by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council for a 7552sq m mixed-use commercial complex in the town will help "stop the drift".
One point of difference could be offering more "ethnic" shops, he says.
"We need a change from the Aussie retail giants."
However, he does not see Te Puke becoming a boutique town.
"Some people talk about the Tiraus. Te Puke is a mix of both worlds - it's a service town but we need to offer a bit more of a tourist experience. You don't get the feeling you're in the Kiwifruit Capital of the World."
It is a dreary Friday morning and a continuous flow of traffic rolls through town. Truck after truck rattles past the shops, spraying a fine mist on pedestrians waiting to cross the road. Where there are no pedestrian crossings, it is a long wait. Despite the drizzle, the Shell service station, at the southern end, has a car at every pump.
"We don't really know how it will affect us," says site manager Wendy Williams. "It could work in our favour. We've got our regular customers but it's got to the point it's very busy and people don't want to wait."
A few doors down at HRB Bakery, which gets about half of its custom from passing motorists, Ross Sullivan is feeling more vulnerable.
As the owner of one of 22 food outlets in a town of just 7000 people, he says the "mix" of businesses will have to change.
"There will be some readjustment but it's a little early still. It's five or so years away."
Dave Young, of One Step Beyond Café, believes he has already carved a niche market.
"I think a lot of people just come here for meals, from the Mount and Tauranga. I make my own bread, I have good bacon and good staff. People like coming out here. And it's open seven days which is a help," he says.
"We rely a lot on growers - I hope the kiwifruit will be okay."
He expects the new road to have some impact.
"It will definitely divert people away from Te Puke."
Inside Molly O'Connor's Irish Bar, it is dark and dated in the way a real pub should be. No chrome and canapés here. Well-worn wooden floors and dim lights provide wrap-around cosiness on an otherwise dismal day.
But owner Sue Peat and her team are anything but dated. Their ideas are fresh.
"It could well do what it's done to other towns and enhance it," says Peat, citing Tirau as an example.
"People (in Tirau) got behind the changes and made it work for them, rather than working against them. It will happen if we like it or not. We've got to look positively at it.
"We have some plans - promotions - we continually work on them. We have all sorts of ideas. You can't sit on the shelf and be negative, go grey and get ulcers," she says.
"People are just going to have to get off their bottoms and think outside the square," chimes in Kevin Haraki-Beckett, the bar's food and beverage manager.
Across a side street is McGregors Wholesale Liquor, which specialises in wine and gift baskets and was bought by Shirley and Des McGregor in 1960.
"The streets can get so congested as it is with the big trucks. It will be a big relief to see not so much congestion as there is now. A lot of our business is local but we do get outside people from other areas coming to our shop too," says Shirley McGregor. "It will be a lot easier on our area and the town. Hopefully it will make it more community-minded and we can do a lot more things other towns can do - make it a shopper-orientated place that people feel they can take part in."
On the other side of the main street, which doubles as State Highway 2 and takes a good five minutes to cross, Russell Doughty, manager of Century 21 Countrywide Real Estate, agrees the trucks need to leave town.
"It would make the main street more desirable if you were not likely to get skittled by trucks," he says. "It hasn't hurt other towns. But Te Puke is a service town and there will always be a service town aspect."
Karyl Gunn, of Gift-rapt, has grander plans. She oozes enthusiasm.
"At the moment it's a service town. It hasn't got a town culture, it's got a main road," she says. "Te Puke has already got a brand. It's the Kiwifruit Capital of the World but it hasn't embraced that. We want to be looked on as different, having a point of difference."
Also chairwoman of the Te Puke Community Board, Gunn says it is estimated that within four years of the bypass going in the traffic flow through Te Puke will be back to the level it is now - minus the trucks.
"The TEL is an absolute need, but how it affects Te Puke in the future no one knows. It's also about the financial crisis we are in at the moment and no one can predict what that will be like in five years."
On the outskirts of town, painted in shades of blue and yellow that echo the Harvestpoint church, is Beacon Motel. At a push of the buzzer, owner Evan Andersen appears.
"Our business is a mixture," he says. "We have company reps coming for work and quite a few overseas guests from all over the world. It's got its positives and negatives. It will be good for guests who are staying to have the truck noise reduced. But it could affect our overseas guests who may bypass us totally.
"I am sure we are going to have to increase our advertising. Put it by the new highway to point people into town, here."
A logging truck rumbles past. The floor trembles. A peaceful night's sleep here is hard to imagine.
Coral and Max Stewart, who live on the edge of town, overlooking the state highway, have been living with these tremors for more than a decade.
"The road keeps falling through," Max Stewart says. "The logging trucks shake the house more than the trains. They wake you when the axles hit the road. You don't get much sleep."
But, while looking forward to more restful nights, they say Te Puke will have to look at ways to attract the "holidaying public".
"Te Puke has to have an attraction that they want to come and see, something unique," says Coral Stewart.
"The time between now and it actually being opened is a great time for the town to hold some discussions on who and what they want to be and how they want to look in the coming years."
Several kilometres east of Te Puke, the giant kiwifruit looms on the horizon. Through rain-streaked windows, against a grey sky, it looks forlorn.
I wonder if the good people of Te Puke turn to face it when they say their prayers at night.
Share your thoughts If you have any ideas about the future face of Te Puke, you can submit them to the "Ideas Bank": ideas@tepuke.co.nz