The juice man

Stefan Lepionka has come a long way from selling ice-cream from a bicycle as a 12-year-old in 1982. Picture / Kenny Rodger

Tuesday will be a reunion for the two men behind the quirky Charlie's juice brand, Stefan Lepionka and former All Black Marc Ellis.

Reunion? An odd word, perhaps, because the duo who have been friends for more than 20 years, were born just two days apart in 1971 and see each other at work every day.

But a reunion is on the cards nonetheless - at Wellington's Basin Reserve during the New Zealand/Australia one-day cricket match.

It will be a replay of sorts of the day Lepionka and Ellis met as 12-year-olds back in February 1982 - when the same two teams were playing there.

Lepionka was selling ice-creams from a three-wheeler bicycle and Ellis wanted a job. He didn't get one, so the next day when Lepionka biked past he threw his cricket bat under the wheels and tipped the whole ice-cream cart over. Yes, they had a bit of a fight but they also founded an enduring, and extremely successful, business partnership.

Even the bike survived. It has been rescued and restored by Southward Car Museum and the orange juice duo are hoping it will join them on Tuesday.

The plans are typical of Lepionka - the name is Polish, his parents came to New Zealand in 1944 as five-year-olds to the orphan camp in Pahiatua - because he likes looking back, if mainly to remind himself what he has learned.

With no formal training, inspired by brands and brandmakers, in particular Richard Branson and Virgin, he set up his first fruit venture, Stefan's, now part of Frucor, in 1990.

This week, he disclosed plans to list its successor - Charlie's - on the stock exchange via a $16.6 million deal with shell company Spectrum. The deal is not a foregone conclusion yet as both parties have to do due diligence, but if it proceeds, he and Ellis will receive shares worth $5 million apiece.

Stefan's was one of the first fresh juices on the market here. In the mid to late 80s, inspired by a family holiday in Australia where fresh orange and pineapple juice was readily available and popular, a 17-year-old Lepionka came home, bought a carton of oranges from some local market gardeners, squeezed them on his mother's kitchen table, put the juice in old milk bottles and sold it at his mother's Wellington coffee shop. It took off.

In 1994, after being approached by Enza/Frucor agents, Lepionka formed a joint venture with the beverage company. He kept 25 per cent of the company; they bought 75 per cent. But it was not a happy deal and they were not happy times.

"They became a majority shareholder and, looking back, they forced me into that. They basically said we'll take you on or you can join us."

Tempted by the bigger infrastructure which would allow him to get Stefan's out to more markets, he accepted.

He believes Frucor took advantage. "I had some national distribution but Enza/Frucor sold the story that they were the big brother and I was the little brother. They just wanted the brand because it was a hugely successful market leader."

After three years, Frucor and Lepionka parted company less than amicably. As part of the terms of severance, Frucor bought his shares.

"Everything you see with Charlie's is everything I wanted to do with Stefan's. It broke me. I'd worked so hard and it all came to an end. I cried with my staff and I just had to get away from it all."

He tells of the days before email when Frucor management would send a colossal mountain of memos daily.

"It became a daily joke with the couriers. They just laughed because there were literally 24 individual memos turning up most days for three years. All I had to do day in, day out, was reply to their paperwork.

"There was no way I was going to let them get me. It was my baby and I was so committed to the joint venture. It was going so well, it was growing, it was very profitable, it was a market leader and there were new things that I wanted to do [with Stefan's]. But little did I know they had another agenda - one they never shared with me and it was never aligned with what I wanted to do."

So, somewhat disillusioned, he set off on his OE in 1997. But dreams of travelling and basically chilling out went awry when he was head-hunted on his first day in London. The next two years were spent working for brokers in Oxford. During his stint, he traded - surprise surprise - orange juice and also anchovies (to Lea & Perrins).

But the lure of home kicked in and Lepionka returned in 1999.

"But I was so poisoned that I never, ever wanted to get into beverage again."

He said it was Ellis who rekindled his enthusiasm.

Ellis and a friend, Simon Neal, wanted to set up a juice plant at the Viaduct Basin in Auckland and Lepionka thought it was a good idea. The three are still partners in Charlie's, along with Gower Management, .

"Marc had a profile, which is great when you're trying to establish a new business. And because I love building brands that was appealing," Lepionka said of the chance to work with his old friend.

"And as luck would have it, I had received an out-of-the-blue call from Campbell Gower that improved my position during the fierce struggle [with Frucor]. Campbell was a great help in ensuring I departed with something more than just my dignity and I was grateful to regain my confidence in business again.

"From this experience, we created the Charlie's team sometime later and here we are."

And so Charlie's was born. Why Charlie's? Because everyone makes one of themselves sometimes.

The plan was to offer a simple, pure product as all others in the market at that stage were adulterated, Lepionka said.

"Every brand, including Stefan's by then, was adulterated. They are watered down and use concentrate. So we just thought, 'we can make an honest brand and there's our point of difference'.

"It's not rocket science."

Charlie's contracts out its manufacturing - preferring to concentrate on building the brand. They are in the process of bringing their sales team back inhouse, a move which will see Charlie's employee numbers jump from four a year ago to 82 come April - 75 of whom are salespeople.

The brand has quickly made itself a reputation, partly because it seems to have a knack of attracting good stories - take its recent giveaway of two Jeeps, for example.

The first went to a South Island student who sold it to pay his university fees, and the second to an economics teacher. He learned of his win having just stepped out of teaching a class - and using Charlie's as a case study for his students. So when Lepionka called him, he hung up, thinking it was his students playing a prank. It took three phone calls to convince the man it was legitimate.

And the story is legend of how Charlie's stepped in to sponsor Paul Holmes' TV One show when Mitsubishi NZ pulled its sponsorship after Holmes referred to Ghanaian UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as a "cheeky darkie" on his NewstalkZB radio show. The deal was canned when Holmes moved to Prime. Charlie's advertising is still with TV One but not with Close Up at Seven.

Lepionka says he will not allow a repeat of the Frucor saga, insisting that he and Ellis will remain majority shareholders when it launches on the stock exchange.

Lepionka can't say much about the deal because of stock exchange rules.

However, Spectrum will sell its investment in software development business Kinetiq, undertake a 1-for-10 consolidation of its shares and then issue shares to Charlie's shareholders at 10c each. Spectrum said yesterday it had received interest in the business and was putting it out to tender.

But Lepionka will own up to being apprehensive and excited about the future.

"The plan," he says, "is to really take this story to the next level."