Where’s the Hawke’s Bay food brand?

Just read that Synlait will soon be selling infant formula in Shanghai for $80 a can, produced at a new $100 million plant in Dunsandel, Canterbury.

The product is called ‘Pure Canterbury’. [See product image here.]

That choice of branding hardly needs explanation. But just in case, here’s John Penno, Synlait Milk’s chief executive:

“What we’re finding is there’s premiums available for products from this part of the world and it’s all about the trust you provided when you make and finish a product here when it goes into the market sealed. If it’s got all the good things about New Zealand sealed up in a can, they’re prepared to pay premiums for that and that’s something you can’t take away.”

Where’s the Hawke’s Bay pure food brand?

I can only see two entities in Hawke’s Bay’s food sector who ‘get’ this marketing potential …

The first is Pure Hawke’s Bay, the group lobbying to keep Hawke’s Bay GE Free. John Bostock is their spokesman. Here’s his message, as published in our Jul/Aug BayBuzz magazine.

The second is Etika, the new asceptic bottling plant just opened in Whakatu. BayBuzz reported on this enterprise in our Nov/Dec BayBuzz magazine. You can read that article here.

More food exporters in Hawke’s Bay need to embrace the ‘pure’ brand. Why should Canterbury eat our lunch?

Of course, the ‘pure’ brand is more than food safety. It includes protecting and delivering to consumers an overall impression — firmly based on reality — that our food is produced in an environmentally sustainable manner.

Tom Belford

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