| 75 RURAL SERVICES » Oakleys Premium Fresh Vegetables The benefit of five generations of know how Southbridge, less than an hour’s drive southwest of Christchurch, where the Oakley office is based. Kim Newth Robin Oakley knows how he likes his potatoes. “Roasted - simple, basic, no fuss. Just in the oven with the smallest bit of oil and a wee bit of ‘secret spice’,” he says. He has had plenty of practice perfecting the cooking as his family has been growing spuds in the sandy silt soils of the Canterbury Plains for five generations. Robin’s great-great-grandfather John Oakley started gardening in Halket in the 1870s, soon after arriving in New Zealand from the United Kingdom. The Oakley family business now grows four main crops: broccoli, beetroot and pumpkins, and its famous potatoes. For five of the cooler months of the year broccoli is grown in North Canterbury, but otherwise the vegetables are in the ground in and around Southbridge, less than an hour’s drive southwest of Christchurch, where the Oakley office is based. “It’s where we store, pack, wash, process and dispatch product,” Robin says. However, from year to year the potato crop is never grown in the same spot. “Our potatoes are grown on leased land because we want to be on fresh ground - that is ground that hasn’t grown potatoes for at least eight to 10 years. That has a big impact on the quality of the skin finish,” he explains. To make it work, the business coordinates with some of the region’s farmers. “We take one paddock a year off on their farm, so they’ll grow their normal arable crops, and we’ll just move around their farm into a different paddock each year.” While it “adds a bit of logistics” to the operation by not having everything planted on their “homebase farm”, producing a premium product is priority, Robin says. The business employs 50 full-time staff and has a small seasonal team. Almost all of what is grown is sold and consumed in New Zealand. Their main customer is Foodstuffs group, although it is only Oakley’s potatoes that consumers will find packaged up and branded on supermarket produce shelves. The own-brand product is important for the business as consumers can relate to it directly. “That goes a long way for us towards keeping that passion alive and feeling like we’ve still got that connection with the people that are eating our product,” Robin says. “We feel like we’ve got ownership right through to the consumer with what we’re doing. It gives us a sense of pride, it gives us a sense of purpose, and I think it keeps that passion fire going. “You actually need that passion to keep you moving forward.” Robin says the biggest challenge for his business right now is maintaining sustainable profit due to fluctuating market values and increased costs, exacerbated by weather events and oversupply. “We’ve had our costs go up like everyone else, but the first couple of years that was counteracted by better values when we were selling our product.” Staff shortages during the Covid-19 pandemic, followed closely by weather events further north, affected supply into the market, helping bottom lines. “But in the last 12 months we’ve obviously continued to bear the brunt of those inflationary costs – and it’s not all inflationary either – and we’ve had relatively low values, or values that might have been acceptable five years ago but aren’t now, because of our cost increases.” He says the problem largely comes down to people’s perception of what something should be worth, as well as the amount of money people have to spend at the checkout. 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