Podcast: A natural at business - Helen Paul-Smith, Ōku New Zealand (edited excerpt)
Listen to the full episode here.
Vincent
"As farmers and landowners grapple with making so-called unproductive land productive, Ōku provides a glimpse at a different type of land use, perhaps more aligned to our native ecosystems. So, it is no surprise that Helen Paul Smith, the founder, draws on her Māori whakapapa for old recipes and tikanga around the use of native plants. It feels like we're just at the beginning of understanding what's possible with our native flora and fauna?”
Helen
“I totally agree. When Scott and I started Ōku, that was when manuka honey had really come to its fore. That's just one amazing plant that grows in our ngahere. We've got a whole ngahere full of these incredible plants that have some really special properties. We've got plants like horepito, which is highly anti-fungal, or kumarahou which is a really powerful respiratory type herb. I think a lot of our New Zealand natives actually have this amazing potency to them that we don't necessarily find with other herbal medicine around the world."
Vincent
“What does Ōku stand for?”
Helen
"Ōku means belonging to, and it's our relationship with the plants. We belong to the plants and the plants belong to us. And we see ourselves as kaitiaki, the kaitiaki for the plants of New Zealand. We're all kaitiaki, and we can't live without each other.”
Vincent
“Tell me how the business started.”
Helen
“We started selling in the Tauranga farmers' markets. Back then, 15 years ago, there was no infrastructure. You couldn't just buy some kawakawa and make up a kawakawa tea blend, for example. We had to start by growing a lot of these plants. We had a little section where we lived in Tauranga, and we had friends who had some land that had kawakawa growing on it. And then at the markets, we'd have people come up to us and say, ‘oh hey, I need to cut back my kawakawa tree. Can you come and do it for us?’ We sort of built up our supplies that way. And then eventually, a supplier came on board. We started with three kawakawa teas and three carbonated drinks with kawakawa in them."
Vincent
"Are you still doing that?"
Helen
“No, we're not doing the kawakawa carbonated drinks, unfortunately. We didn't have enough money behind us to have the refrigerated product. It's another whole level of things. And so just three teas wasn't too hard to have a certain amount of native plant supply. And then as we've grown the range, we've needed more. So we had to plant more and source more from different people. We've got harvesters who live on their own land or have access to whanau land that will go out and harvest for us. And they're all around different parts of the country.
Vincent
"You've also partnered with Ag Research or is it Plant and Food?"
Helen
"At the moment we're doing a project with both. With Ag Research we're developing some new way of doing bandages with collagen that will completely dissolve into the skin and you won't have to peel off the bandage. And it's particularly useful for victims who have got burns because when you have to remove the bandages, you're actually traumatising the skin again."
Listen to the full episode here.
SBN is partnering with This Climate Business to connect with our network and broaden its reach.