John Palamountain on one of his many promotional tours with Kiwi rugby icon Sir Colin Meads. Photo / Supplied
A life's work is the legacy John Palamountain left for his family, his hometown and the world.
Johnny to his family, or simply JP, the 75-year-old was born in Beckenham in Kent, England, on October 6, 1945, and was brought out to New Zealand at the age of 1 with his English mother and Whanganui-born father, settling and growing up in and around Whanganui.
He sadly lost his battle with ill-health on June 16.
His hometown Whanganui is at the heart of all that John and wife Ruth did, particularly within their business life.
While John was raised and educated in Whanganui, he attended Wesley College in Auckland as a boarder for several years where he played rugby in the 1st XV. It also provided a turning point in his life.
John met and befriended a young school mate called Pappy Pittams who had suffered polio and was forced to wear orthopedic devices on his legs. These, of course, attracted jibes and cruel comments from classmates.
John became Pappy's protector, honing his boxing skills in the process. Wesley also provided John the chance to further develop his entrepreneurial skills.
He quickly noticed the older lads, in particular the prefects, were smokers. John soon managed to find and buy cigarettes and on-sell them at a profit.
John's entrepreneurial skills were, in fact, recognised at an early age when he was just 6 months old after his mother Joan placed him in a play pen and to keep him amused gave him cake tins to play with – John used them to escape over the bars.
His passion for the land and animals began at an early age while working on farms in the Waverley/Waitotara regions, but it wasn't until after a stint in his own logging and hay contracting business that in 1973 John began a career in the petfood industry when he joined as a territory sales rep for the Elastrator Company selling Elastrator docking rings and Tux dog biscuits.
John and Ruth married in 1977 and the following year became involved in a partnership with Rover Products in Otaki, primarily manufacturing Rover Dog Biscuits and Bob's Mix Bars.
While running Rover, the young husband and wife team bought a 45-acre block of land in Otaki and went about building a kiwifruit orchard from scratch. John's earlier years as a teenager working on remote areas of hill-country farms stood him in good stead. He was fit and hard work held no fears.
But the call from home was relentless and finally in 1993 John and Ruth bought a major shareholding in a dry dogfood manufacturing business that had done its dash in Palmerston North.
Bonny Products had no room to expand in Manawatū, but there were plenty of reasons that Whanganui could be its new home.
Whanganui had 90 per cent of the raw materials needed to produce dry dogfood and an ideal site to relocate to - the iconic Griffin's biscuit factory in Taupo Quay.
The new site allowed for increased production, a prime base for distribution and access to a solid base of hard working, conscientious staff.
John headed to Italy to buy a secondhand oven, but on arrival found the company had sold the one he thought he had dibs on. Using his smooth-talking entrepreneurial skills, John managed to buy a new oven for the price of a secondhand unit while allowing the Italian company an opportunity to save face.
Bonny Products was up and running within six months of deciding to relocate to Whanganui. When the Palamountains established Bonny Products it was in partnership with Salmon Smith Biolab, an Auckland-based company involved with animal health, paua processing and surgical instruments.
In 1994, global giant Heinz Wattie bought Bonny Products, and John and Ruth stayed at the helm for six years. Ironically, Heinz Wattie finally relocated the plant back to Manawatū.
A nagging concern about the health and longevity of working farm dogs prompted John to look more closely at supplementary food products to improve animal health.
So the husband and wife team set up Vitapower in 2001 and have since marketed and sold their increasing range of animal supplementary food products worldwide through the Palamountains Animal Nutrition brand.
Established as innovators in the animal supplement industry, Palamountains brings a unique range of oil-based products designed to improve the overall health of animals.
Palamountains supplements were a world-first patent - a scientific formulation developed with internationally renowned scientists at Massey University in New Zealand. The patented oil formulation is designed to protect the vitamins and minerals, allowing for absorption rates up to 99.5 per cent.
Essentially, the nutrients, vitamins, minerals and trace elements are suspended in a patented oil solution allowing the animals' systems to absorb and utilise all the important components to maximum effect - it makes the animals want to eat.
Unlike other supplements or processed foods on the market, the unique formulation has up to a 99.5 per cent absorption rate in contrast to the 10-20 per cent of traditional powders and pill supplements.
Working closely with Massey University Food of Technology scientist, Professor Brian Wilkinson, the Palamountains have fine-tuned their growing list of supplementary products to better suit specific animal groups, including equine, dogs and cats, dairy, sheep and beef, birds, bees and deer.
The collaboration has been and continues to be a success, winning the hearts of animal health markets in a growing number of Asian countries, the Arab Emirates and at home in New Zealand.
Vitapower, through its Palamountains Animal Nutrition brand, is now an established innovator in the animal health industry, providing scientific nutrition worldwide.
The passion of the Palamountain family which established the business in 2001, especially John's vision, has driven the creation of the unique and effective business that is the heart of Whanganui.
John's tenacity and relentless drive to find solutions to deliver products that improved the health of animals is what impressed many of those who came into contact.
John would bring Professor Wilkinson an idea, a problem to solve that would help resolve certain animal health issues.
"Some were easy to solve and some were really difficult, but John's tenacity and relentless drive to find solutions was impressive," Wilkinson said.
One way or another solutions were found.
"He was an amazing man. I've never met anybody who could get things going the way John could. He was a remarkable man. He was actually one of the best people from a business point of view that I have ever met," Wilkinson said.
John's people skills and marketing nous were major factors in the success of the family business.
John approached icons in Kiwi culture to help promote the Palamountains brand.
First was the late great Sir Colin Meads, followed by Charlie Duncan from the iconic Rangitīkei farming family and then multiple world shearing champion Sir David Fagan.
All three were impressed by this likeable driven man so passionate about growing the family business.
"What I learned about John during our time together was storytelling abilities, his entrepreneurial skills, his business skills. As a legacy look what he has left his family, what he's left Whanganui – it's absolutely incredible," Sir David said.
"All you want to do is leave your mark and he's certainly left his mark."
Charlie Duncan, who runs a farm cadet training school on the family farm Otiwhiti Station near Hunterville, is another impressed by John Palamountain.
"We had a problem with our sheep and took that problem to John. He came back with a solution. He didn't wait for stuff to happen, he made stuff happen. John was an innovator, an entrepreneurial type guy and that's what I liked about him," Duncan said.
Rugby, hunting and particularly fishing also played major roles in his life alongside his love of family.
John is survived by wife Ruth, daughter Tanya, son Corrie and grandchildren Taylor, Brooke, Carter and Darcy.
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