A group of Unitec students in Auckland have given hands-on learning a whole new meaning - by creating, producing and marketing their own range of soda drinks.
Inspired by the marae at the heart of Unitec and using Maori herbs and plant extracts - some of which grow at the campus - the students have created the drinks under the brand name Inu (a Maori word meaning to drink).
The team is planning to offer the drinks free-of-charge to the public at beaches and events in Auckland over summer from a restored 1955 retro Airstream caravan they will use as a pop-up store.
Around 5000 bottles have been made at the Aroha Drinks plant in Christchurch to specifications and taste determined by the students. The sodas come in three flavours - Pear and Lime with Horopito, Feijoa with Kawakawa Leaf and Lemon and Ginger with Kawakawa Leaf.
One of six students involved in the project, 22-year-old Aucklander Abhi Topiwala, is almost speechless when considering what they have achieved.
"I'm stumped," he says. "It's very overwhelming but in a great way. I can't emphasise how broad the whole project has been, from coming up with the idea to developing the flavours and taste, the production and communications around it all.
"But man, they do taste good and I've not regretted doing it. At the end of the first semester I was asked if I still wanted to be part of the project and I thought 'heck, why not?'"
Topiwala says many different ideas were tossed around when they were first asked to come up with a concept. Developed as part of a campaign to promote Unitec called 'Learning in Action', the 12-month project was designed to show how a combination of theory and hands-on experience can benefit students.
"One of my early ideas was to create 3D animation on a screen while we also talked about creating a pop-up café or making craft beer," Topiwala says. "We gave that idea away because we didn't think it would be good for the image of Unitec.
"So we got thinking about what would be most viable in the market and came up with the idea of soda drinks; I think we've come up with something unique to Unitec and New Zealand and have produced a soda using a lot less sugar than many other drinks."
While the drinks were the brainchild of the student group, the project was completed with the guidance of Unitec lecturers and professionals from the food, advertising and events industries (including the blending and testing of the drinks at the Food Bowl, the New Zealand food industry's innovation facility in Manukau).
Although Topiwala has completed his Bachelor of Creative Design degree and is looking for a job, he believes the drinks project could form the basis of an ongoing business: "I don't see why not, after all, the products are there."
Others who worked on the project included fellow creative design students Jess Cooke, Hillary DePuy, Peter Phaly, Connaugh Grace and Jess Alison.
Unitec's brand and communications manager, Anna Hitchcock, says the tertiary institution positions practical learning as a core practice: "Employers want doers as much as thinkers and we believe this helps students find jobs when they graduate.
"We wanted to shine a light on how Unitec approaches learning and to demonstrate students can learn hands-on while studying," she says. "We could think of no better advocates for Unitec than the students themselves."
Hitchcock says the Airstream caravan was re-modelled and restored with help from engineering and automotive industry contacts.
"We got it from people in Hawkes Bay who had had it brought over from Ohio in the US," she says. ""It was totally beaten up and it really was just a rusting shell."
Hitchcock says Unitec plans next year to look at whether manufacturing the drinks could be turned into a viable student-led business; for now they will be giving the drinks away from the Airstream caravan as it moves around various Auckland locations.
Its next stop is at the Christmas celebrations at Silo Park in Wynyard Quarter. It will be there from 5pm on Friday (December 22).
Read more from Unitec here