The Executive Club: Fruitful family venture reaps reward

KiwiFruitz's Steve Atkinson, Grant Jeffrey, Robert Jeffrey, Craig Jeffrey, Rob Jeffrey accept their Westpac Supreme Winner -- Business of the Year award. Photo / Wayne Tait Photography

Kiwifruit production pioneers.

Rob Jeffrey was an understandably proud parent when he joined sons Grant and Craig and their team as they picked up the top award for family-owned company Kiwifruitz at the Westpac Tauranga Business Awards at ASB Arena last week. It was the team's second appearance on stage - earlier in the evening, Kiwifruitz had won the Manufacturing and Logistics Award.

Daughter Gwenda Merriman -- Western Bay of Plenty's vice mayor -- and eldest son Ian, who manages the family dairy farm, also play key governance roles in the business. They are also directors of the Newnham Park Horticultural Innovation Centre, co-founded by Rob Jeffrey and well-connected local agri-entrepreneur Steve Saunders, where Kiwifruitz and a number of other hi-tech businesses are based.

Mr Jeffrey, now in his 80th year, said: "All you can do is lay down the foundation and the platform and create the opportunity.

"Kiwifruitz success has been very much Grant's doing. He's a perfectionist, he strives for excellence and he's totally market-driven."

Rob Jeffrey was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to agriculture and export in 2004. He served a term as president of Export New Zealand and has held a number of executive positions in the dairy and pork industries. His company, Jeffco International, was a pioneer in exporting breeding livestock to Australia, the Pacific and Asia.

Mr Saunders, who runs the Plus Group, said: "Rob's been a fantastic supporter of developing Newnham Park as a technology hub and of Bay of Plenty export in general."

Born in Hamilton, Mr Jeffrey moved to the Bay of Plenty in 1951 when his father had an opportunity to buy a dairy farm in Whakamaramara in the early post-war land settlement days. The family is still farming the land, with eldest son Ian running 240 cows.

Mr Jeffrey said: "A lot of my contemporaries expanded their dairy farming operations, but not all of our family wanted to be dairy farmers. And exporting led us down different paths."

The exporting grew out of an early family interest in breeding and showing livestock, which eventually saw Mr Jeffrey begin sending breeding pigs to Australia in 1960.

"We put together some good genetics in pig production and I started to get interest from overseas."

Mr Jeffrey began exporting not only his own, but other farmers' breeding animals, developing a thriving business throughout the Pacific and Asia over the next few years.

But he could see that the future lay further north, in China, and, after making his first Company that visit there in 1989, he set up a joint venture in Shandong province in 1994 to explore agri-business and livestock opportunities.

Mr Jeffrey's company partnered with Landcorp Farming, later linking up with Wrightsons Exports, and was successful in getting a number of large shipments of New Zealand breeding sheep, goats and heifers into China in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Daughter Gwenda, who had been working in banking, decided to return to the family business and became active in the livestock exports.

However, by the mid-2000s, Jeffco decided to pull back for a combination of reasons. First, the company's China manager was encouraged by Mr Jeffrey to accept an opportunity to become agricultural adviser with NZTE in northern China. And second, China had made its quarantine protocols much more restrictive.

Mr Jeffrey said: "It became a very demanding and expensive venture to stay in, so we backed off. And we had other things to do."

Grant, who had worked for a Fonterra subsidiary and then in Australia, had developed an expertise in food processing, packaging and marketing. He decided to return back to the family business in the late 1990s and began exploring new opportunities.

The seeds of Kiwfruitz and the Newnham Park innovation centre date back to 2000 when Grant became involved in a business that was beginning to experiment with turning kiwifruit into purees.

The Kiwifruitz business started off on a packhouse site initially owned by Rob Jeffrey, David Elms, Steve Saunders and Alistair Young. Mr Elms and Mr Young were eventually bought out and the Jeffreys took over ownership of the kiwifruit puree business with Grant running the business as general manager and Craig joining as supply chain manager. It is very much a family business: Grant's wife, Kathryn, is the production and quality manager and Craig's wife, Rachael, is the seed technician.

Rob Jeffrey and Steve Saunders became the 50-50 owners and developers of the site, which evolved into Newnham Park (see sidebar).

Mr Jeffrey added: "The equipment was old and Grant realised we needed to improve it. I got involved and we started to design and build new processing equipment."

The investment has paid off. Kiwifruitz processes kiwifruit puree for the food and beverage sector and also extracts seeds and skins for other manufacturers in the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, exporting more than 90 per cent of its production.

The Westpac Awards judges said they were impressed by the company's product, market positioning and growth in a highly-competitive international market.

"All of our businesses have been agri-based," said Mr Jeffrey. "When you're a dairy farmer, you're in the food business. That's where our hearts lie, in food production."

Rob Jeffrey. Photo / John Borren

Innovation hub result of pair's vision

Newnham Park Horticultural Innovation Centre was the brainchild of Plus Group's Steve Saunders and Rob Jeffrey, whose relationship goes back to the late 1990s when they became involved in the Te Puna location, an old packhouse site.

"We had a vision to develop it into an innovation hub and slowly began to put it together," said Mr Jeffrey.

"There was a huge amount of renovation to do. We were always looking to try and put the best systems in place we could. We were striving for excellence."

The first stage opened in 2010, with a follow-up expansion opening earlier this year. Newnham Park now houses nine companies, including Kiwifruitz, Southern Produce, Plus Group - which includes a number of agri-tech companies - Heilala Vanilla's new state of the art manufacturing facility, and industrial design company Locus Research.

"What I love about working with Rob are his wisdom and his maturity in the export sector and his support and enthusiasm for the BOP and its potential," said Saunders.

"He's been extremely supportive of the vision. For me, Rob's been a mentor. The opportunity to sit around the table with him has been immensely valuable to me on a personal level because of his wisdom and experience. I couldn't have asked for a better strategic partner."

'Chinese taught me a lot'

Rob Jeffrey says he learned a great deal from his decades of experience in trading with the Chinese, initially in Southeast Asia and then in China.

"When you understand the Chinese way of doing business, there's a lot to be said for it," he said.

"It comes back to buyers having an expectation and you've got to make sure you have the capability to meet that expectation," he said. "I've always stuck to that fundamental approach."

Another element that is notable in Chinese culture is a strong emphasis on the importance of family, a trait reflected in the Jeffrey businesses.

Mr Jeffrey paid tribute to the support of his wife Muriel in raising their family and said he was often asked how they managed to make a business with so many family members work.

"The first thing is good communication," he said. "The children all work well together. The other thing is that they lead their separate lives. They have been away from the family and worked in other areas, but they wanted to come back into the family business of their own volition."

A key lesson was recognising the need to cherish success, said Mr Jeffrey.

"There will always be a failure here and there," he said. "It's how you handle failure that's important."

Rob Jeffrey

Role - founder of Jeffco International, co-founder of Newnham Park Horticultural Innovation Centre
Born - Hamilton, New Zealand
Age - 79
First job - dairy farming
Currently reading - Willie Apiata VC: The reluctant hero by Paul Little