Award-winning Te Puna-based manufacturer Heilala Vanilla last month moved into a new purpose-built facility on its Newnham Park site and is about to embark on a fresh round of capital-raising, says managing director Jennifer Boggiss.
"We understand it's the biggest pure vanilla extraction production facility in Australasia," said Ms Boggiss, who co-founded the company with husband Garth Boggiss and her father John Ross.
The new facility, built over the past two years, would increase the company's manufacturing capabilities in extracting pure vanilla from Tongan vanilla beans.
"My father was donated a piece of land in Tonga in 2002 in return for giving young people in the community employment," said Ms Boggiss. "It was all about rebuilding industry there in the local community. Initially it was just our farm, but we now partner with other Tongan growers."
It hasn't been an overnight success. It took three years to develop the family's vanilla plantation, then in 2005 the family team set up Heilala Vanilla and began to develop commercial vanilla products.