Bay of Plenty Times
  • Bay of Plenty Times home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Sport
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Sport

Locations

  • Coromandel & Hauraki
  • Katikati
  • Tauranga
  • Mount Maunganui
  • Pāpāmoa
  • Te Puke
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Thames
  • Tauranga
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Bay of Plenty Times

Local Focus: 'Modern Forager' bridges gap between growers and customers

Gavin Ogden
By Gavin Ogden
Video Journalist, Tauranga, NZH Local Focus·NZ Herald·
31 Mar, 2020 09:09 PM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

New website gives hope to regional growers. Made with finding from NZ On Air.

New Zealand's alert level 4 lockdown means a whole new world for many Kiwi businesses.

This is especially so for local producers and growers who supplied the nation's cafes and restaurants, which are now shut.

"Last week everything changed so quickly for us," said Florence Van Dyke, co-founder of Nelson drinks company, Chia Sisters.

"We suddenly saw all of our café sales dropping off and just a lot more tension about what was going to happen - staff nervous that they might lose their jobs."

In a bid to help connect these growers directly with their customers, Mount Maunganui branding agency Woods has launched The Modern Forager.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"We work with a lot of growers, makers and food producers and they export their products offshore," said Melissa Woods. "But also supply locally around New Zealand to restaurants and cafes."

"The way we access food is going to change and we need to try and help people find the food and also help the people growing and making the food get it to the people."

The goal of the website is simple.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"Get the food to the people," Woods said. "Create cashflow for the growers so they can still have money coming in if they've got stock sitting in their warehouses or on their farms or the buildings. And also help New Zealanders stay home and eat local and shop local and have food delivered."

Chia Sisters was one of the first businesses to sign up to the service.

"We've seen an 80 per cent decrease in sales over the last fortnight," Van Dyke said. "But being able to sell online, direct to people's homes gives us another channel to lift our sales."

Van Dyke is aware that there's a danger the rules could change at a moment's notice.

Discover more

New Zealand

Local Focus: Mayor says the next four weeks are going to be a challenge for everybody

25 Mar 04:39 AM
New Zealand

Local Focus: Tumbleweeds on the streets of Tauranga

26 Mar 04:56 AM
New Zealand

Local Focus: Advice from Pāpāmoa couple stuck in Spain

03 Apr 07:44 PM
New Zealand

Local Focus: New babies don't wait for lockdown to end

07 Apr 04:35 AM

"It might be that in the future we're not allowed to supply online for example, but at the moment [you] just take every opportunity you can while remaining within all the precautionary boundaries that MPI has provided.

"We have a warehouse full of stock, we have all of our employees able and ready to work and we just need new customers. Now's the time to be trying new things so long as we can remain within the boundaries that the Government has provided for us."

Hawke's Bay start-up Good Vibes Fungi had planned to attend the Go Green Expo in Auckland with kitchen-ready fungi grow kits.

"We made one thousand of these ready to grow. Less than two weeks out this Covid-19 stuff changed the world dramatically. The event was cancelled and we were like, what do we do with these thousand grow kits?" said co-founder Zane Gerrie.

The business had just weeks to transition from selling at Farmer's Markets to selling online.

"We had to build a website from scratch and figure out a different sales mechanism," said Gerrie. "We had to try and figure out how to find the customers."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Co-founder Kimi Knott says it's important to work together.

"We have to pull together as small growers and have other avenues because people aren't able to get out and about, but they still have the internet so collaboration is really important for all of us now really."

In these uncertain times a little bit of Kiwi ingenuity can go a long way.

"It will be innovations like this that enables New Zealand to recover economically faster from Covid-19," said Van Dyke.

Made with funding from

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Bay of Plenty Times

Bay of Plenty TimesUpdated

Feral goats' days numbered in 'unique' conservation park

25 Jun 07:40 PM
Bay of Plenty TimesUpdated

'Biggest summer of cricket' shapes up for Bay Oval

25 Jun 07:00 PM
Bay of Plenty Times

Mount Maunganui's big summer of cricket

Kaibosh gets a clean-energy boost in the fight against food waste

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Bay of Plenty Times

Feral goats' days numbered in 'unique' conservation park

Feral goats' days numbered in 'unique' conservation park

25 Jun 07:40 PM

An eradication programme has won a $750,000 government grant to get it started.

'Biggest summer of cricket' shapes up for Bay Oval

'Biggest summer of cricket' shapes up for Bay Oval

25 Jun 07:00 PM
Mount Maunganui's big summer of cricket

Mount Maunganui's big summer of cricket

Tama Potaka seeks review of Māori roll ad featuring Tāme Iti

Tama Potaka seeks review of Māori roll ad featuring Tāme Iti

25 Jun 07:16 AM
Engage and explore one of the most remote places on Earth in comfort and style
sponsored

Engage and explore one of the most remote places on Earth in comfort and style

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Bay of Plenty Times e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Bay of Plenty Times
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP