[As published in September/October BayBuzz.]

When you think about Hawke’s Bay exports, apples, logs, wine and meat spring to mind. But there’s a whole lot more to our exports than just primary production. 

In this article we meet four lesser known Hawke’s Bay and East Coast exporters, all finalists in the recent Export NZ ASB Hawke’s Bay Export Awards.

Brebner Print: Stamp of Approval

With email and electronic payments delivering a king hit to letter volumes worldwide, only a gambler would place a bet on producing postage stamps as a sustainable and long term business strategy. 

But that’s exactly what Taradale’s Brebner Print has done. The Hawke’s Bay founded business, now part of Blue Star Group, has become one of only three globally recognised high quality stamp producers, and now exports postage stamps to many countries around the world. 

The primary historical role of stamps is to facilitate communication. But they have also served other purposes, as collectibles and as a canvas and mirror for national identity and culture. More than 180 years on from the Penny Black – the world’s first adhesive postage stamp the role of stamps is changing, and Brebner Print is at the forefront of that change. 

Blue Star’s 2022 acquisition of Southern Colour Print (SCP), a Dunedin-based stamp producer, paved the way for Brebner becoming one of the world’s best stamp producers. Blue Star moved SCP’s stamp production north to Napier, and brought Matt Tobin, Southern Colour Print’s Stamp Production Manager to oversee production. 

These days stamps account for around 18% of Brebner revenue, and around one-third of the Brebner workforce. 

Matt Tobin explains: “We’ve got 15 people (out of a total workforce of 49) working in stamp production, and it’s mostly for export. 

“We’re exporting stamps to 37 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Oceania, and have seen 50% year-on-year growth in this part of the business. We are projecting the same level of growth for next year, and have just added Taiwan, Macao and Brunei to our customer base.” 

With postal volumes falling across the world, postal administrations are trying to encourage new collectors, he says. 

“And the way they do that is by making things really pretty. We’re really producing little bits of art for people to buy.” 

Tobin has spent 20 years in the print trade, qualifying as an offset printer. The complexity of stamp production sets it apart from other print jobs. 

“Stamps are a lot more difficult to produce than a brochure, which is usually a template. It’s the variety, the shape of the sheets, the embellishments and the stamp sizes. They all present their own difficulties. There’s just a lot of challenge. 

“I love that countries tell their stories through stamps.” 

Brebner stamp products include gummed stamps, self-adhesive booklets, rolls, and first day cover envelopes. With an eye for the collectors, embellishments include holograms, specialty papers, fluorescent ink, foiling, sculpted embossing and exceedingly high resolution of more than 600 dots per inch. 

Customers are not shy about investing to create the ultimate in collectible stamps, says Tobin. 

“One spent about $50,000 for a special kind of perforation that will be used once. Another spent around $30,000 to develop a hologram, which was a New Zealand first. And we’re seeing more innovation in shapes and designs,” he says. 

As you might expect, there’s a lot of security involved in stamp production and Brebner is one of a small group of companies with the necessary security status to produce postage stamps, and is regularly audited by Swiss audit company SQS.

When asked what sets Brebner apart as a stamp producer, Tobin says it comes down to quality.

“There are three printers in the world that are shortlisted for being of a high enough quality standard. One in France, one in the Netherlands and us. We are the only three that are even eligible to tender on work.

“The special thing is, this is among the most technically difficult and highest quality expectation work, and we’ve introduced it to Brebner Print,” says Tobin.

Frost Fans: The Boss of Frost 

From its brand new $12 million factory on Omahu Road Hastings, Frost Fans delivers peace of mind to growers of frost susceptible crops all over the world.

Founded nearly 30 years ago, on a model of importing and selling offshore fan technology, Frost Fans began designing and building its own models from 2007, says CEO Andrew Priest.

“One of the big parts of our IP is our composite blade, designed by former Team New Zealand designer Richard Karn, to make sure we had the most efficient blade rotating through the air.”

This fan technology, marketed as Frost Boss, together with on-the-ground service teams in key growing areas in New Zealand and Australia, a climate consultancy, and app-enabled data analysis has positioned Frost Fans as the market leader in Australasia.

Today Frost Fans employs 80 globally, and is at the forefront of agritech innovation, exporting to 12 countries, with many thousands of fans protecting crops around the world. About half of its fans protect apple crops, says Priest.

“But that’s changing quite rapidly as we expand geographies and crop types. We cover wine and table grapes, nuts, citrus, stone fruit, pip fruit, berries, kiwis and avocados.

“Essentially any crop that can be damaged by frost. In Hawke’s Bay there’s lots of apples that we protect. In Marlborough, it’s all wine. In Australia there’s a really big segment of almonds that we protect, and that’s quite a growing area for us.”

Exports to countries other than Australia currently account for a third of sales, says Priest.

“If I springboard forward five years, our hope is that non-Australian exports will be two thirds of our revenue, and that we’re growing sufficiently in those large markets in Europe (France, Italy, Portugal) and in Latin America. 

“If you look at all the crops we could potentially protect, the opportunity is large. But of course, accessing it, and making it happen, when you actually have to go and do it, is more difficult. 

“There’s almost two stages we have to go through in new markets. The first is to convince a grower they need frost protection, and then we need to convince them to use a Frost Boss.”

Priest didn’t want to comment on price, but did say that the fans more than pay for themselves after one frost event.

“If you take the earnings per hectare of whatever crop times the seven hectares (on average) that one of our fans cover, the fan will pay for itself.”

Frost Fans new manufacturing capabilities rely heavily on robotics, the first of its kind in Oceania, and have tripled production capacity, enabling the company to more easily scale, says Priest.

“It’s also given us a much more accurate product, an increase in quality and a much better working environment for our team.”

Frost Fans was named Judges’ Choice at the recent Export NZ ASB Hawke’s Bay Export Awards.

Magiq Software: the Magic Touch 

In 1980, the Benson brothers, John, Jim, and Pat started a little software company in Napier serving the New Zealand utility and local government sectors, that they optimistically called Magiq. Customer number one was Wairoa District Council. 

Fast forward 44 years and Magiq Software is a cloud based enterprise resource planning software company, a fancy name that means its software runs ‘whole of business’ – everything from rates billing, dog registration, parking tickets and all the back end functions like budgeting and document management – with four locations globally, and more than 600 local government clients in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. 

Despite its global footprint, Magiq’s headquarters remain in Hawke’s Bay, explains Hamish Murray, Group Sales Manager Australia and New Zealand. 

“All of the development work for our enterprise product that councils use is done out of Hawke’s Bay, and we support our worldwide locations from here as well. We have about 45 staff located in Napier; some of our senior management team, and all of our development and support teams.” 

In 2012, Magiq underwent a transformation, with a significant rewrite of the product to modernise the software. 

“It’s now completely cloud based, and built in Amazon Web Services. We’ve taken many of our legacy customers, like Wairoa District Council through a process of upgrading the old software applications to the modern cloud version,” says Murray. 

That transformation paved the way for Magiq to enter the Australian market where it began building an enterprise solution for local governments on a piecemeal basis. 

“We did it long and slow. Around the same time, we also acquired two complementary businesses that were Melbourne-based, and products from those businesses – budgeting for government and document management for government – are now tucked into our enterprise solution and sold separately.”

Magiq took its budgeting solution to the United States, partnering with half a dozen local government vendors, and today has around 250 North American local government organisations using its software.

In 2021, Magiq was acquired by US based Springbook Software, a significant local government ERP provider.

They do everything that we do in Australia and New Zealand,” says Murray. “And they also resell our products.”

When asked what sets Magiq apart, Murray says it’s the history of the company.

“Our organisational roots and our products, were born in local government. It’s a marketplace where you can make significant inroads to grow your business if you’re an established vendor like us. 

“There are far less competitors in local government than in the private sector, and that’s because of the complexities of local government. There’s typically 40-plus business units in a local government agency, and no one vendor will deliver it all. So being able to work with other systems is highly important, and we provide that for customers.

“We can solve complex problems, we have high ‘reference-ability’. There are no trade secrets in local government. They swap stories and you’re only as good as your references.”

As to the future, Murray says that Magiq wants to continue to grow in each of its markets. 

“There’s enough activity for us to do that, and we are derisked by being in three jurisdictions. We see continued investment in Hawke’s Bay, and depending on the role and availability of skills, we intend on hiring continuing. It’s not going to go the other way.

“It does look like it’s going to be a positive few years ahead for us.” 

Rua Bioscience: New Zealand Green

Medicinal cannabis company Rua Bioscience carries the hopes and dreams of East Coast communities. 

The Māori founded NZX-listed business, raised its first $2 million by crowdfunding from local communities, from Te Araroa to Tairāwhiti, visiting marae along the way, says CEO Paul Naske.

“The community came along on the journey of starting up this business. Internally, we call it the community’s business, because they’re invested in it literally and emotionally.

“We had people coming in, grandmothers, with $50 notes saying it’s from my mokopuna. I’m buying a share.”

Rua Bioscience has its origins in Ruatoria, a place with strong associations to the Class C drug, marijuana. Co-founders Manu Caddie and Panapa Ehau wanted to do good, and transform a small impoverished rural community. It coincided with the medical cannabis regime opening up in New Zealand.

In 2024 the company is very different from when it started, around five years ago. Originally the plan was to grow everything, and export it, explains Naske. 

“But as the regulations progressed, we’ve changed the business model. Ruatoria’s focus is about the genetics they have access to. What we’re doing is developing cannabis genetics – tiny seeds or cannabis plants, and exporting those to cultivation partners who do commercial growing. 

“They take our inputs, and grow it into a product, and then we sell the product in that market, branded as Rua.”

Rua’s medicinal cannabis products have been available in Australia for around a year, and launched in Germany last year. It has two products approved in New Zealand and will be in the United Kingdom in October. 

“By October we will be in four markets, with four revenue streams. It’s taken us five years to get to a solid start line, and we can grow from there. Medicinal cannabis is in a tighter and tougher framework than food, so you have higher hurdles to jump through in a regulation sense. We are making good, solid progress,” he says.

Sustainability and giving back is a key part of Rua’s kaupapa, with a compassionate access programme for people who can’t afford the medicine, and a scholarship programme for locals. 

“We work with suppliers internationally, and we say to them: ‘If you want to work with us, this is our community. Can you donate to our compassionate access or scholarship programmes?’”

While Naske rates regulation as a key risk for the business, he notes that markets are liberalising.

“There’s been regulation changes in Germany, which means demand is very high, so we’re playing into that. 

“In every one of our markets the graphs are all going up and the pie is expanding, so we are playing into a growing market. The optimistic future is bright.”

The diversity of our export community brings real strength to our economy, and helps Hawke’s Bay to weather the swings and roundabouts of global markets, and what’s happening at home. We export that? Yes, we do!