Wrapping up a Kiwi flavour

Geoff Dale has expanded his range from an initial six designs to 18 and has new ones in the pipeline for Christmas. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

After 13 years of making Kiwiana gift wrap, Geoff Dale has produced enough to reach half-way to the Space Station - a stretch of more than 250km.

And with his company New Zealand Wrapt's papers topping the sales sheets of one of the country's largest gift wrap and card distributors, Dale has also built himself the type of business most would envy - one that's largely "hands off".

Dale got into the wrapping paper business in 1992 after struggling to find any with a New Zealand theme on the market.

His son was heading off for a language exchange trip to Japan and wanted to wrap the gift for his host family in paper with a New Zealand-flavour, but had to settle for Australian-made.

Dale, who was working as a news photographer at the time, set about making paper printed with his own photographs.

He started with six designs, produced as 700cm by 500cm rectangular sheets which retail for $3.95, and gift cards and tags to match.

Sales dribbled in initially, but were soon boosted when the range got taken up by a boutique stationery store chain in Auckland.

Now 5000 sheets are produced monthly which are stocked on the shelves of stationery stores, information centres, florists and Post Shops nationally.

New Zealand Wrapt's paua shell and koru wraps have been top sellers for the country's number three wrapping paper distributor Image Gallery for the past six months.

The range has grown to 18 designs including lambs, pukeko, beach scenes, greenstone, Jaffas, kiwifruit and the word New Zealand in 12 languages.

Festive wraps with pohutukawa and Christmas decorations will be new this season.

Paua remains the biggest seller, with one customer recently buying enough to wallpaper her bathroom.

Dale has tried to sell Aussie-themed gift wrap across the Tasman but, despite many sales trips to Australia, has been unable to find a distributor willing to take it on.

Selling the idea of national-icon-branded gift wrap to other countries is still one of his plans for the future.

The present range is stocked in one store in London and a US distributor is in the pipeline. It took three years to pay off the $20,000 set-up costs and turnover now averages $6000 a month.

Dale's wife and sister help out with the accounts and Image Gallery takes care of the warehousing and distribution. That leaves Dale to keep his eye on stock and to come up with new designs, in between working as a freelance photographer and acting in the occasional television commercial.

One of the biggest thrills along the way was when he saw former US President Bill Clinton receive a gift from the New Zealand Government wrapped in his paua shell wrapping paper on television.

Paper plus

* NZ Wrapt started with six designs.
* It now has 18 designs, ranging from paua shells to lambs.
* 5000 sheets of paper are produced monthly.