Robin said he still loved to bungy jump, was a demonstration jumper, and would be featuring in a television advert soon.
At the time of the chance tamarillo relish encounter, they had been managing the Waiwera Holiday Park for eight years.
In 2007, they bought about 4ha on the side of Whatitiri Mountain and set about planting 4000 tamarillo trees.
Heather developed some delicious recipes for vinaigrette and relish in her home kitchen and, by 2009, they had added a commercial kitchen to their "flat in a barn".
Later they built a house on the property and the business continued to grow and they built up a loyal following at farmers' markets.
"It went ballistic,'' said Robin.
Heather used her creative skills to help design the 'For the Love of Tams' logo for the brand and Robin flexed his marketing skills.
"We had to develop and build purpose-built equipment to extract the sweetest part of the fruit. That took about 18 months of trial and error,'' he said.
In 2017, the Tamco relish was nominated as a finalist in the NZ Food Awards, and the next year it won the silver medal in the Outstanding New Zealand Food Producers Awards. The vinaigrette won a prestigious US Specialty Food Association's Sofi Award for best new salad dressing in 2018 under the Serious Foodie Tamarillo New Zealand Marinade and Dressing brand.
Muffin Break has used their fruit preserve through its 45 stores in New Zealand and My Food Bag uses the relish and vinaigrette in its recipes and was named among the top-10 favourite ingredients.
With all that success, Robin and Heather decided to sell the orchard last year and concentrate on developing markets further.
"There were a lot of missed opportunities and I realised we couldn't do both well. We want to develop more and get into the lucrative export markets,'' he said.
Tamarillos are now delivered for freezing at North Port Coolstores and taken for processing to Coatesville, near Auckland.
"It got too big for us to do everything by hand. Now it's made under contract and there was no place in Northland that could handle the bottling and labelling process,'' he said.
Catering packs have added to the versatility of the products for restaurants and cafes.
Heather said the vinaigrette was infused in red wine vinegar imported from Italy.
"We wanted a very mellow taste,'' she said.
Robin said the products were being especially well received in countries where people were already familiar with the fruit.
"Australians already know about tamarillos and our products were really popular at trade shows in Melbourne. We've exhibited there twice and are hoping to get back and launch our products there this year, Covid willing.
"We're also working with a Japanese broker who is really keen to develop markets there. Japanese people are more receptive to trying new fruits.
"There is a big demand for top-quality produce from New Zealand because it has a good reputation and is Covid-free.
"They are going nuts over it,'' he said.
Meanwhile, they are also setting up distributors in Auckland and Christchurch to better handle New Zealand orders.
