Crunch goes out of pickle company

By DITA DE BONI

Piquant chutneys, gherkins and crisp pickled onions will no longer roll off the production line at Budapest Gardens in Papakura.

The company has had to close its operation and is in receivership after a move to bigger and better premises did not pan out.

Managing director Andrew Eszes, son of the Hungarian immigrant couple that founded the Budapest company in 1964, says it breaks his heart to see the work and passion of a lifetime disappear.

He says loyal customers have been "genuinely sorrowful" on hearing of the demise of the company, and the household name will be missed.

"We'd just like to let people know that yet another viable, local company has been destroyed by forces let into the country from outside," says Mr Eszes.

"While I don't think we should be protectionist, I think in a tiny country of four million people there should be some safeguards against large overseas companies wiping out local industry players."

In the heyday of Budapest pickles, the company was processing 70 per cent of the country's pickled onions, including a large proportion for its rival pickle player, Cerebos.

The Budapest business was worth $2.5 million, and supplied 160 tonnes of mainly onions, but also gherkins and other pickle products, into all major supermarkets.

When the family decided the market was getting "flat and mature", and main customer Cerebos told the company to bring its factory up to new standards being enforced at the time, the family "took the punt" and left its base in Whenuapai to buy a new $1 million factory in Papakura.

But at the same time, an aggressive new competitor from Australia, Aristocrat, swamped the local market with cut-price pickle product and took a huge chunk of Budapest and Cerebos' business.

This led to the end of promised lucrative contracts for Budapest Gardens.

Receivers were called into Budapest on July 16.

"My parents and I are due to lose everything in this collapse including our inheritance - and this kind of thing is happening all the time to small businesses," says Mr Eszes.

A spokesman for Cerebos Gregg's in New Zealand said it was regrettable Budapest had been forced to close its production lines.

He said Cerebos would be reviewing its contract pickle-processing arrangements.