Mr McKee spent two more years with Elders, then began a much more entrepreneurial journey. It began by opening the nightclub Highlights in Hamilton with some of his rugby friends.
After a year or so, he moved to Auckland, where he had a couple of businesses, which included revamping a failed hat shop.
"I asked the girls working there why it wasn't succeeding, because they had plenty of foot traffic, and they explained it was because the owner was buying the wrong things. We took over the lease, bought better stuff, ran it for a year or so and sold it," he said.
At that point he moved to Mount Maunganui, a long-time goal, and took over a small petrol station, which he ran for a couple of years, before leaving for 18 months' travelling around Europe on a belated OE stint.
"I should have done it when I was 21," he said. "I tell every young person I meet they should make sure they get away as soon as they can."
After he returned, he became a partner in new Turkish restaurant Zeytin, part of the refurbishment of The Strand waterfront a decade or so ago.
"Confidence comes with ignorance," he said, noting his inexperience in the restaurant trade. However, the restaurant became a success and Mr McKee eventually went on to take over Zeytin in Mount Maunganui and open a new branch in Hamilton, leaving his original partner in control of The Strand operation.
"The concept was great as it's healthy and affordable food," said Mr McKee.
However, in 2008 old friend Ian Thorburn asked him to buy into contract snack bar manufacturer business Bar King, so Mr McKee sold the restaurant and became a partner in a new business.
At that stage Bar King focused on contract manufacturing for major snack bar companies. Mr McKee said the contract food manufacturing space was difficult because so much of the control lay with the clients.
But one day, three years ago, while adding vast quantities of sugar to a vat to manufacture a "fruit" bar, he had an epiphany, triggered by the increasing focus on growing obesity levels and the need to encourage healthier eating habits.
"I thought this can't be right," he said. "Every year we get more pressure to make things cheaper, and sugar is the thing that allows us to makes everything cheaper. That's when we came up with the idea of Nothing Naughty, which was to be our own brand and something we could develop into a range of products that were of a better nature than what was around."
Clive Cousins, who has known Mr McKee for more than a decade and was a partner with him in the Mount Maunganui and Hamilton Zeytin restaurants, described him as an innovator.
"Peter's a perfectionist," said Mr Cousins. "He wants to do it right and be the best and he doesn't give up on anything. He doesn't believe in sitting back on his laurels. He's always coming up with new ideas and innovation is the key to it."
Snacks take fresh approach to reaching buyers
The main thrust of Nothing Naughty, the new business that has developed alongside Bar King, is to create a range of more nutritious and healthy snack bars. Nothing Naughty's shareholders include original partner Ian Thorburn, as well as investor Frederick Greenville and the business' marketing manager Sally Cox.
Mr McKee described the business as medium-sized, with a staff of around six and intensive management involvement in the manufacturing process.
The company has the capability to make about 60,000 fruit bars and 30,000 protein bars a day, while larger manufacturers might produce 500-600,000 per day, he said.
"There's a difference between the large manufacturers who are not interested in doing anything like this because it's not time profitable, and the companies that are too small to produce in volume, so everything they make has to be worth a lot of money," he said.
"Our philosophy is that we have to make it better not cheaper, and that's fundamentally the difference between us and the manufacturer supplying the supermarkets."
Mr McKee said Nothing Naughty had looked at all the lines to the market to find a distribution system that was not too expensive for the end user.
That effectively had meant avoiding trying to sell directly to supermarkets because the various rebates and margins involved would have pushed prices too high.
Instead, the company has licensed local franchises to handle distribution, focusing initially on corporate cafeterias.
"Every business has a box of snacks," he said.
Nothing Naughty was also supplying snack bars to Compass Catering for end use in corporate and hospital settings, he said.
Sister company Bar King continues to operate as a contract manufacturer, but is more selective in its choice of clients, said Mr McKee.
The company currently does work for PepsiCo subsidiary Bluebird's range of snack bars, and for New Zest, which makes the Good Green Stuff range of healthy snack bars, as well as other clients that could not be disclosed for reasons of business confidentiality.
Peter McKee
Role - Director and co-owner Nothing Naughty/Bar King
Born - Hamilton, New Zealand
Age - 56
First job - Farm worker
Recently read - Winter of the World by Ken Follett
