What's happening in the Hawke's Bay business world?

Galaxy Group NZ owner Gerry Blampied has been recently importing new robotic platforms to assist fruit pickers.

Re-leased business award nomination

A Napier based company has earned its national recognition as it is nominated for top award. Property management company Re-leased was nominated as one of eight finalists for the Best Emerging Business award at the New Zealand International Business Awards. The company is one of two Hawke's Bay finalists named in the run-up to the awards, which are managed by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and supported by ANZ, recognising excellence and innovation in businesses trading globally. All up 39 finalists and nominees were announced in sectors from technology to agriculture, food and beverage to manufacturing. The winners will be announced at a black-tie dinner in Auckland on Thursday, November 7.

Economic confidence in Hawke's Bay and Gisborne edges lower, according to recent Westpac report

A net 20 per cent of Hawke's Bay and Gisborne households expect their regional economies to prosper over the coming year. That is according to the Westpac-McDermott Miller Regional Economic Confidence survey for the September 2019 quarter. This is a small drop on the 26 per cent posted for the June 2019 quarter.

"Despite the drop, households in this region are the most confident in the country," Westpac chief economist Dominick Stephens said. "The region's housing market remains very strong even if the market is past its peak. At the same time, there has been an acceleration in residential building consents which augurs well for construction activity in the future," Stephens said. "That said, slightly lower confidence levels are likely to reflect the impact of a global headwinds, which have resulted in sharply lower log prices, less harvesting activity, and job losses at a time when the region's labour market is already showing signs of deterioration."

Tecnofruit platforms taking the fruit industry by storm

Hawke's Bay's fruit picking industry is getting a boost but it is a little more futuristic then you might think. Galaxy Group NZ owner Gerry Blampied has been recently importing new robotic platforms to assist fruit pickers. The Tecnofruit is a multi-tiered apple picking platform which enables apples to be picked in one pass at all levels of the apple tree.

The platform holds four pickers, each with their own station that they control independently to go up and down, in or out. The fifth person on the platform is a QC who checks the apples as they go up the conveyor on their way to the collection bin, while the platform is self-steering by the use of sensors. Blampied brought his first machines to Gisborne and has since had a huge amount of interest from Hawke's Bay companies interested in the product. "Hawke's Bay is the biggest market in New Zealand and people are loving it, it not only helps with increasing picking numbers but also helps in protecting the safety of the workers as well."

Hawke's Bay Business Hub seminars

A look at the week's business news in Hawke's Bay. Photo / File

The Hawke's Bay Business Hub has a couple of one day courses coming up on October 16-17 around how to best work and develop a safe workplace for you and others. The first on Wednesday 16 from 9am – 4pm looks at bullying in the workplace. This course focuses on helping you how to identify disruptive team members, the cost they put on your organisation, how to confront a difficult person through constructive dialogue, and strategies for guiding them back to co-operative behaviour.

The next on Thursday, October 17 from 9.30am–3.30pm is a Marketing Strategy Group Workshop. This will take you step-by-step through the process of creating a marketing strategy and will look at how this improves and builds on your individual business. Further information and costs relating to these courses can be found on the Hawke's Bay Business Hub website.