KEY POINTS:
Twenty eight years after starting out selling mung beans sprouted at his parent's house, Ashley Berrysmith last night clinched the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Berrysmith runs NZ Fresh Cuts, the country's biggest supplier of packaged vegetables and salad greens.
Awards judge David Johnson said Berrysmith was someone who could turn anything into a winning product.
"You can just see with what he's done and what he's got on the go and you think 'wow, whatever he touches this guy is going to be a winner'.
"It's because of the way he strategises, thinks, puts a name around it and then goes out to market the heck out of it," said Johnson.
However, Berrysmith hasn't always had success.
An early foray into the market for fresh salad greens, which now makes up the bulk of his current business, was abandoned after a year. Undeterred, he re-entered the market which had discovered an appetite for salad greens, teaming up with Hamilton's Convex Plastics to design a bag to extend the product's shelf life.
Johnson said Berrysmith had a knack of engaging other companies to help with the product design.
"You can have a great idea, but if you can't put it into the market and make a buck out of it it's just a nice idea," said Johnson.
"But this guy's got a knack of getting people to take that idea and make it into a package and sell it."
He said Berrysmith had reached the stage where he had 40 or 50 projects on the go, any of which could be grown into successful brands.
Next year Berrysmith will travel to Monte Carlo to represent New Zealand at the world entrepreneur awards.
Last year's winner of this award was Guy Laliberte, founder and chief executive of Cirque du Soleil.
