Hawke's Bay Business Hub

Hawke's Bay Food & Beverage Sector

Hawke’s Bay may once have been branded as the ‘Fruit Bowl of New Zealand’, with our hot dry summers and fertile soil nurturing a huge and diverse horticulture sector in our region, but these days there’s certainly a lot more to our food and beverage industry than fruit.

We’re proud of that heritage, and the culture of innovation that has attracted great talent and created so many world-leading businesses right here in the Bay.

Our role is to support businesses on their journey from start-up through to scale up and beyond. We work closely with all of the agencies and networks that are here to support business, with a focus on strategic regional projects and business development and growth.

We support industry clients by creating opportunities to network, inform and educate, and we’re here to help your business to grow. We can put you in touch with people who can help with capability building, technology, processing availability, research and development and business advice.

We manage food and beverage projects of benefit to the entire region and encourage strategic collaboration between businesses.

If you would like some support developing your food & beverage business or your new idea, or if you’d like information on whether Hawke's Bay is right base for your business, please click here to email Nicky.

Foodstuffs Emerging Supplier Forum - Hawke's Bay

If you're thinking of starting or growing a business and supplying Foodstuffs is in your plan you won't want to miss this one!

Foodstuffs North Island, in partnership with the NZ Food Innovation Network, would love you to join them at their FREE Emerging Supplier Forum.

What we’ll cover:

Who they are and how they work
What they look for in a product and supplier partner
What to think about when considering supplying retail
Latest customer insights and trends

We hope to see you there!

Trash into Treasure

Hawke’s Bay is one of the country’s biggest food producers, which also means we are one of the biggest creators of food production waste. But an exciting new project is set to tackle this.

The recently launched initiative – Sustainable is Attainable Hawke’s Bay – is working to change trash into treasure, not only keeping waste from landfill but developing high-value by-products. With around 30 local businesses already committed to the project, it’s off to a strong start.

Nicky Solomon from Food & Beverage Hawke’s Bay is the coordinator for the project. “It kicked off at the end of 2021 after I had heard about the project in Timaru. Sustainable is Attainable Timaru has been running since 2019 and, with the backing of the district council’s development agency Venture Timaru, they’re already into the advanced research and feasibility stage.”

Read More!

The Hawke's Bay Sprains and Strains Surveillance, Management and Prevention Programme

A need exists for a change to current approaches concerning sprains and strains prevention, whilst managing and preventing this significant and persistent injury problem in New Zealand workplaces more effectively.

The Hawke's Bay Sprains and Strains Surveillance, Management and Prevention Programme is a research partnership between Massey University and the Hastings Health Centre aimed at estimating the extent of sprains and strains injuries in the Hawke's Bay region and assessing workplaces to identify where there are opportunities of designing out the cause of these injuries. The three-year project is funded by the ACC.

Designing out hazards is one of the most effective means of preventing occupational injuries and illnesses and Prevention through Design (PtD) is a systems-based framework that focusses on eliminating the hazard/risk at source.

Working together: Our project aims to build partnerships with regional employers, supporting them to identify primary causes of injury amongst their workforce, whilst also supporting to combat their occurrence through the design and implementation of preventative methods.

Contact details: Associate Professor Ian Laird, Associate Professor in Occupational Health and Safety, School of Health Sciences, College of Health - Massey University, DDI: +64 6 951 7914.