Business Central December 2021

| 45 Wellington Gold Awards: 3 Māori Boys Ltd REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT A ground-breaking natural beverage 3 Māori Boys founders - from left, Lance Paora, Joe Harawira and Wayne Atkins. Create the labels you want, with no compromise! 0800 425-223 | info@label.co.nz www.label.co.nz PROUD TO SUPPORT 3 MAORI BOYS Food and Beverage labels Beer labels Wine labels Pharmaceutical labels Beauty Product labels Industrial labelling; or any other kind of labelling you might need T T Sue Russell F rom the simple desire by three mates Lance Paora, Wayne Atkins and Joe Harawira, to have a new reason to catch up with each other has come a ground-break - ing new natural beverage. Wai Mānuka is a simple blend of three ingredients, mānuka honey, sourced locally in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, lemon juice and sparkling water which has been enthusiastical - ly received by the market. The beverage was recognised, for its unique qualities and the meaningful philosophy driving its creation, at this year’s Wellington Gold Awards as a finalist in the Emerging Gold category. All three mates have Whakatane in common from year’s back, and though they have caught up annually at New Year’s, they wanted to find a way to do something more together - hence forming their company 3 Māori Boys Ltd to develop and promote Wai Mānuka. Joe Harawira says that since the light-box moment of inspiration the story has develop - ment and marketing of Wai Mānuka has an almost “surreal” quality to it. “We just thought that using these ingredi- ents might produce a nice drink, something non-alcoholic that you could take to a social occasion, but what has really happened has been well beyond our expectations.” Since New Year 2019, when the mates got together around a BBQ, to then finding Sarah, a gifted food technologist to come up with the right blend, to then making an appearance at the viaduct at this year’s America’s Cup as one of only two approved non-alcoholic drinks, things have just fallen into place beautifully. As it turned out a big part of the success has come down to Lance, Wayne and Joe each bringing their own skill-sets and experiences into the mix. Lance works in the beverage sector and Wayne is a teacher, while Joe with a good ‘business-head’ on his shoulders, deliv - ers well-being programmes for NZ Rugby. When the call came from Sky City, who were organising official beverages for the Americas Cup Joe said it was like a bolt out of the blue. “We had applied to be considered but didn’t really think we had a chance, since it was such a new product and little known. “Even they said we were the wild-card but they just thought we were on to a winner and the rest is history.” The Icing on the cake was probably when 7 Sharp contacted them and asked to run a story about Wai Mānuka and its journey. Even to this day reporter Lucas de Jong says it was for him one of the best stories he’s done. “He told us the video was the second most viewed story of the year,” says Joe. One of the things Joe says that they most enjoy is meeting new and different people they would never have connected with if it wasn’t for Wai Mānuka. There are other elements to this story as well: “When we started on this journey it was about us being connected as mates but as things have developed we feel like a height - ened sense of responsibility to our community because we realise this whole thing is bigger than us.” Te ao Māori – the Māori worldview, under - pins all that this enterprise is, with principles such as Hauoratanga, Whanaungatanga, Manaakitanga and Kaitiakitanga, inextricably linked to everything Joe, Wayne and Lance do. “We believe that taking a holisitc approach to business and putting relationships first has been fundamental to what we’ve achieved in a short time”. Joe explains. Work is ongoing in establishing wider markets for the beverage and providing for the New Zealand consumer. “There’s lots of exciting things happening and it’ll be easy to get caught up in it all, so for us, its about staying true to our values, keeping each other grounded and celebrating every day we get to be part of this amazing journey.