Tamahere Country Market stallholder wins national BNZ Market Made Comp

Anne-Marie Bird from Books for Less. Photo / Mark Hamilton

Tamahere Country Market stallholder Books for Less is one of four national winners of the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) Market Made Competition.

The competition was a nationwide open call for New Zealand’s up-and-coming small business success stories, born out of a market.

Books for Less, founded by Hamiltonian Anne-Marie Bird and her husband Moses, is a second-hand book business that has grown from a passion project to a business focussed on waste minimisation.

With her small business, Anne-Marie is diverting books from landfill by reusing and recycling them, or upcycling them into bespoke art.

Books for Less has grown from passion project to a business focussed on waste minimisation. Photo / Mark Hamilton

The self-proclaimed bookworm founded Books for Less after a disability and illness left her unable to work or to visit op-shops and second-hand bookstores, or even the local library.

Anne-Marie says she is ecstatic about the win.

“It’s really exciting that something I’ve built up from scratch, despite the battle with my health, is being recognised. Getting our business in front of more people is incredible, and I cannot believe we’ve won.”

The prize pack includes $5000 cash, a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip cellphone, a BNZ business financial health check, and paid promotion on BNZ social channels to the value of $2500.

James Moore, of The Taipa Salt Pig. Photo / Donna Russell

The prize pack will help Anne-Marie bring Books for Less to more markets and a wider audience – ideally in an electric “bookmobile”, she says.

Books for Less was part of a small group of three other winners including The Taipa Salt Pig, founded by former Hamiltonians James and Yasmin Moore, Cameron Bignell of Eden Orchards near Blenheim, and Kelli-Jo Walker of Clevedon’s The Wild Fermentary.

The businesses were chosen from a total of 213 entries.

James and Yasmin provide their loyal Northland customer base with high-quality sea salt made purely from people power and the sun. They moved from Hamilton to Taipa in 2015 in search of an easier lifestyle after living a busy and stressful life in the healthcare and business sector.

The prize pack will set up their charitable trust operation, harnessing solar energy to turn seawater into desalinated drinking water.

Kelli-Jo Walker, co-founder of The Wild Fermentary.

Kelli-Jo launched The Wild Fermentary at Clevedon Village Farmers Market in 2020, and uses locally sourced wild botanicals to make their kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir and kvass.

Meanwhile, Eden Orchards, owned and operated by the Bignell family, is tackling Aotearoa’s food waste with its pure cherry juice - since its launch in 2017, they have diverted 900 tonnes of imperfect cherries from landfill.

BNZ general manager of marketing and design and Market Made judge, Amy Phillips, says the quality of entries showed that New Zealand has many talented small business owners.

“These are the unsung heroes of the business world, people turning their passions into commercial operations, and all of us at BNZ are delighted to get in behind four truly impressive winners,” says Phillips.

As a seasonal market stallholder herself, she understands the challenges first-hand.

“We believe each of the market businesses we’ve selected has the potential to become the next New Zealand success story, and go from ‘market made’ to ‘market made-it’.”