KEY POINTS:
Brian Hirst reckons he's one lucky boss. It's not everyone who has a loyal team of staff willing to stick with the company for 20 years. Based in Nelson, Tasman Bay Food Group produces and distributes healthy snack options for school canteens in New Zealand
and Australia.
It also processes fruit into juice and cider.
The lifestyle is not the only thing keeping managing director Hirst in Nelson. The company is located right in the middle of its markets, close to apple orchards, and attracts the best workers he could ask for.
Hirst started Tasman Bay Juice Company with his wife in 1978. In 1984, he joined two business associates to form Robinson Brothers and developed the bag-in-a-box packaging now used for cask wine.
In 1996, fierce competition helped persuade them to sell the juice business to Rio Beverages and re-establish themselves as producers for the school canteen market.
The company reverted to the Tasman Bay name in 2000, when it acquired a bakery, and Hirst has since bought his partners out of Tasman Bay Foods to become the sole shareholder.
Parents will probably recognise Tasman Bay Food Group from the wrappers their children bring home in their lunchboxes Juicies, Moosies and Hot Bites, to name a few.
Juicies, the company's longest-standing canteen product, emerged before the Rio sale.
A nutritionist approached the company in the early 1990s asking whether it could produce a healthy food choice for schools.
The request inspired the idea of selling juice in a sachet (Juicies) and the company decided to look into other products suitable for school tucker.
Twenty years later, Tasman Bay Foods produces around 100 different food items, employs 35 staff and has four parts: Food Sense (the bakery), New Zealand Cider (apple and fruit processing), Tasman Bay New Zealand (the sales and marketing arm) and Tasman Bay Australia.
Unlike the staff, the ranges are constantly changing.
Hirst says it is difficult to come up with new and exciting products in such a competitive and regulated market.
"Once upon a time we used to brag about the fact that all of our products were met with some market acceptance.
"But nowadays it is harder to crack into markets," he says.
The costs involved in launching a product - creating packaging, developing formulas, buying stock, carrying inventory - amount to tens of thousands of dollars, so mistakes are costly.
Some costly adjustments were made to the products in order to comply with the new food standards regime, implemented in June. Ever more stringent criteria for food, especially children's food, keep the company on its toes.
"It's easy to make a product taste good but when you are restricted on fat and sodium and sugar it presents new challenges - we quite enjoy those challenges but it's not always that easy," Hirst says.
With such a wide range of products and around 40 distributors, school canteen products are marketed under the Future Foods brand to "stimulate cohesiveness in the market", says Hirst.
An incentive-buying scheme allows the company to connect with and give back to the schools.
A coupon is printed on each carton, and when the products are sold, the school can redeem the coupon for cash to go towards the school's development.
The same approach was introduced in Australia when Tasman Bay Food Group began exporting in 2000.
Hirst would like to see the company expand its export markets further, but says the parochial nature of overseas markets make them difficult for small New Zealand companies to crack.
A company operating in the food industry has plenty of other hurdles to jump before it even thinks about export, he says.
It must develop a recognisable brand through packaging, comply with labelling guidelines and generate enough capital to grow and manufacture the products.
"You've got to stay focused and believe in what you are doing and if it doesn't work, get out and try something different. You've also got to be innovative, producing something that's realistic and can reach a certain level of business.
"Plenty of people can come up with unique products but you've got to have unique products that have unique selling points, and features that fascinate or will apply to the people, that people are going to want," Hirst says.
Tasman Bay Food Group is growing at a healthy 10 to 20 per cent per year and its products have been recognised at national food awards.
Its healthy pies (mince in bread casing with a potato top) scooped the enterprise award and Heart Foundation healthy tick award at the Massey University Food Awards in 2006.
Hirst meets frequently with a small advisory board to look at how the business can be developed further.
He is looking to develop the juice processing operation by extending the fruit processing and manufacturing it already carries out for customers.
Key goals include exporting higher value and value-added food items and continuing to launch innovative products.
"The food industry is really challenging. It's unique in many aspects, in that everyone needs food so there is always a market for the right products."