Hawke's Bay: Blakcat Berries delivers during lockdown

Julie and Tony Maurenbrecher checking online sales, with pet cat Molly looking on. Photo / Warren Buckland

Blakcat Berries has been chasing its tail for around 30 years and may have taken the pandemic to finally allow it to lick its wounds.

Blakcat Berries started as a boysenberry and apple orchard, supplying Wattie's with boysenberries for canning and Enza with apples. Owners Julie and Tony Maurenbrecher say they utilised the land according to the soil classifications determined by the regional
council's soil maps as "versatile Heretaunga Plains soils".

"We took some time to realise the soil had severe limitations and we could not produce sustainable economic returns as a commodity supplier," Tony says.

The apple plantings were steadily reduced, and local markets were developed for their boysenberries and the new plantings of raspberries and blackberries.

"This was successful on a local scale with seasonal sales through the orchard shop and supply to local supermarkets and vegetable shops."

The berry crop was further developed into a frozen product with a year-round supply to local supermarkets and through the Blakcat Berries orchard shop.

However, since the Covid-19 pandemic, sales have ramped up another notch.

"We have now found that a delivery service has expanded our client base exponentially and are hoping to continue to refine this in the future."

Blakcat Berries supplies New World Havelock North, Onekawa and Hastings, Haumoana 4Square, Cottage Farm vegetable store and sells at the Hastings Farmers Market in season.

During the "fresh season" — summer and autumn — they employ around five locals and the same number of RSE workers.

"Julie and I are also fully engaged with the orchard during the fresh season. For the rest of the year, Julie runs the orchard. We are hoping to reduce the dependence on RSEs in the future," Tony says.

When lockdown began to loom, the family recognised a contactless delivery service had to be set up.

"We were fortunate in that we already had MPI registration to enable this. We were also fortunate in that we had our children handy for IT issues. Our daughter Michelle came through with marketing expertise gained from her current degree study and our son was available for IT issues and delivery skills gained whilst working for a moving company in Melbourne."

An electric vehicle is used to make deliveries within Hawke's Bay, covering an approximate range of 40km.

"We are limited to this range from the orchard as fresh and frozen products do not travel well and our older Nissan Leaf has a range of around 80km. We have also had a poor result from contract delivery services."

Although gate sales have always been a part of the operation, Tony says the delivery option appears to be more efficient.

"The exponential success of the online service was very stimulating for us all and led to some very full and frank management discussions. We have been extremely busy and that has kept the black dog at bay. We may concentrate on this in future."

Tony says there have been surprisingly few challenges other than involving more people with "on your feet" decisions.

"We have had to refine the management process from 'winging it' to 'winning'."
Although overall profit margins may not have improved, cash flow has been improved as frozen products are able to be sold in a shorter time frame.

"It certainly has given us better direct access to our customers with concomitant benefits from positive feedback. We have probably fared better than most businesses in that we are fully occupied, engaged in an interesting process which has involved the whole family and have been in a better position to address cash flow issues."

■ For more information or to place an order visit

https://www.facebook.com/BlakcatberriesHB/ and http://blakcatberries.bigcartel.com/