Harrods goal for Kiwi yoghurt maker

Shaun Jacka from Piako Gourmet Yoghurt has big plans for the UK. Photo / Natalie Slade

By Christmas Day, British department store Harrods will have pots of Piako Gourmet Yoghurt on the shelf.

That is the vision of Piako co-founder Shaun Jacka, who is in Britain setting up operations.

He has told his young British-based sales manager his potential shareholding rewards will decrease if he fails to achieve this goal.

Piako, which began production early last year, is a finalist in the University of Auckland Business School Entrepreneurs' Challenge.

Come finals night in November, Jacka hopes to grab a share of $1 million in business funding and mentoring to boost the expansion plans.

Piako yoghurt developed out of Jacka's love of the creamy, gourmet product available in Brisbane, where he was working.

He saw an opportunity to bring the yoghurt to the New Zealand market and approached the Australian producers with a proposal to set up an operation here.

Jacka was joined by childhood friend Hamish Pye as head yoghurt-maker, with the Piako name inspired by the Hauraki Plains area they hail from.

The relationship with the Australian producers remains strong.

As well as passing on the family yoghurt recipe under licence and taking a stake in Piako, Queensland brothers Paul and Grant Mathewson were able to supply the first samples used to test the New Zealand market.

That support was invaluable when a problem with the supply of unpasteurised milk wrote off the first six-tonne batch of yoghurt made at the company's Mt Wellington premises.

"It nearly broke us. Everyone was dipping into their pockets. My wife was still in Aussie sending money over," said Jacka.

The business was profitable and could be a nice little earner if left to grow organically, he said.

"Of course that is not what I've got in mind."

Growth plans involve a two-pronged approach - expansion in New Zealand and plans for Britain and beyond.

At the moment, 12 per cent of supermarkets and a range of specialty food stores stock Piako yoghurt.

Jacka wants to increase that share to 90 per cent, in part through a deal with Fonterra Brands to provide the necessary supply chain and distribution.

Market research has confirmed a gap in the British market for gourmet yoghurt, but Jacka said it was also a market that liked to support its own.

So Piako will be ditching its New Zealand name and story and reinventing itself as Little Melton Gourmet Yoghurt, the likely location of its British operations.

Look for it on the shelves of Harrods come December.