Harnessing harakeke - a Christchurch start-up launches a new future for a traditional taonga. Video / Frank Film
It could change the performance of a pickleball paddle, snowboard, surfboard, even a rally car.
It could also reduce our reliance on carbon fibre, restore Māori tikanga and put unproductive land to sustainable use.
For Ben Scales and William Murrell (Ngāi Tahu), co-founders of KiwiFibre in Ōtautahi Christchurch, the potential of composite materials based on the durability, strength and energy-absorbing properties of harakeke is nothing short of world-changing.
“We’re solving the world’s challenges through using natural materials that allow humanity to prosper,” says Scales.
“We are using harakeke and composite textiles to replace carbon fibre and fibreglass, which have significant environmental, human and technical challenges.”
“It’s many markets, worth trillions of dollars. Pretty much everything starts with a textile.”
Early Māori regarded harakeke as a taonga. It was used for clothing, footwear, traps, mats, kete, fishing nets, lashings for waka and to make mōkihi [rafts] and, thanks to its antiseptic properties, traditional rongoā medicines.
Early Pākehā also recognised the potential of harakeke for floor coverings, insulation and, most importantly, rope.
The first patent for a leaf-striping machine was issued in 1861, and by the 1890s the flax industry was booming.
Vaughan Templeton, curator of the still-operational Templeton Flax Mill Heritage Museum at Otaitai Beach near Riverton, points to a photograph of his great-grandfather William Templeton, who developed a commercial flax milling enterprise on that site in 1911.
“It was New Zealand’s largest export by volume - bigger than butter, bigger than wool, bigger than timber.”
By 1905, when flax milling was its peak, there were around 240 mills throughout the country.
From the end of World War I, the industry began to decline, the result of the Depression, which saw flax exports plummet from 20,000 tonnes to less than 4000 in just two years, as well as the arrival of a “yellow leaf” disease, the availability of cheaper synthetic fibres and the invention of petrol and diesel engines.
By 1972, almost all the commercial flax-processing plants in New Zealand had fallen silent.
Harnessing harakeke - a Christchurch start-up launches a new future for a traditional taonga. Photo / Frank Film
Half a century later, Scales and Murrell were engineering students at the University of Canterbury. One of their assignments was to resolve the issue of tī kōuka [cabbage tree] leaves. Because they can damage composting shredders, they cannot be recycled through green bin collection systems. The same problem, they realised, prevented the composting of harakeke leaves.
In looking for uses for the flax (harakeke is not botanically a flax but a lily from the Hemerocallis family), they used a barbecue in a student flat to make a skateboard prototype from the fibre. It was a success.
By the time Scales and Murrell graduated in December 2022, at the age of 23, they had founded KiwiFibre Innovations, raised $1.5 million to develop the fibre for high-tech industrial uses and waded into the world of capital raising and angel investment.
They experimented with a front bumper for a road version EV rally car - vit came out at half the weight of the original front bumper.
As Scales reasoned, if it was good enough for a rally car, “it’s good enough for sport equipment”.
Morrell says the company is ready to scale up to meet global demand for an alternative to carbon fibre but KiwiFibre, a member of the Harakeke Industry Alliance aimed at the sustainable revitalisation of the harakeke industry, wants to ensure this is achieved through regenerative land use and Māori tikanga.
As with most crops, commercial flax crops used to be planted in soil and biodiversity-depleting rows, then cut away in its entirety. “It would take eight years for the plant to grow back properly,” says Scales.
On a farm near Te Waihora-Lake Ellesmere, harvesters take only the outer tīpuna or grandparent leaves, so allowing for the healthy growth of the inside leaves in accordance with Māori tikanga.
In planting harakeke on floodplains and unproductive farmland, they are also hoping for a sustainable transition of land use that will help restore biodiversity without threatening food production.
While other countries plant hemp and linen on food-producing land, “we don’t want to be taking land away from those production areas”, says Jules Haus, KiwiFibre partnerships and growth lead. “We want to be adding to those areas that can’t be farmed for those purposes.”
Even waste material is put to productive use. Back at KiwiFibre HQ in Sydenham, Christchurch, extracted harakeke juice has been used to make 5% KiwiFibeer Harakeke Pale Ale - just a small taste of what Scales and Morrell are hoping to achieve.
“Eventually it’ll be tens of thousands of tonnes a month that are being harvested and processed and turned into high-value products for international markets,” says Scales. “That requires a fully fledged industry in New Zealand contributing to hundreds of thousands of jobs, prospering regions and communities, and boosting the Māori economy.”
