By early next year, New Zealanders could see Niuean grown herbs on supermarket shelves.
New Zealand's former High Commissioner to Niue, Mark Blumsky, owns and operates a rapidly growing hydroponic produce company on the small island.
The company has seen such rapid expansion that Mr Blumsky intends to start exporting herbs to New Zealand in the near future.
Mr Blumsky, who is also a former MP and Wellington mayor, says that his company supplies the island with a range of fresh produce, from herbs to rock melon.
He spoke to Amy Harrison about his plans for developing the company and how the company has changed Niue.
Photo: 123 RF
Transcript
Mark Blumsky: It's become bigger than we initially anticipated and it's quite something because we're selling what we're growing, in fact we're selling everything we're growing. We've expanded the entire range of produce that we grow hydroponically.
Amy Harrison: The herbs, I understand that you're looking at importing those into New Zealand.
MB: We've been growing herbs since day one and we've had feedback from chefs and from many people that come from New Zealand who visit the farm, that they like the quality of our herbs, they like the size of the leaf, they like the intensity of taste and smell. So it's given us the confidence I suppose to embark on a "let's see if we can sell them in New Zealand campaign". The current bit of work we're doing right now is for me to get trade samples into New Zealand, I'm in New Zealand next week, if that goes well, then I'm pretty confident that by early next year that we'll be in a position to export quite significantly into New Zealand.
AH: The Ministry of Primary Industries has tightened their rules regarding border security, have those affected the timeline of your project at all?
MB: The rules are strict, for sure, and so they should be, but Niue, Niue's quite a sort of lucky little island. We don't have a big pest problem so we're a bit of a special environment because we don't have the pest problems many countries have.
AH: What impact has your business venture had on Niue?
MB: Fundamentally, I believe and many on the island believe, we're changing the health habits, dietary habits of the island. A lot of Niueans are now eating a lot fresher, a lot healthier produce because it's so easily obtained and the price is so much sharper, we're not having to bring it in from New Zealand. So we're really making an impact on the health of the nation. We sell everything we grow and we're just excited about how much bigger we can get.
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