| 17 T T Rosa Watson Pine nut producer wins top award Pinoli general manager Lee Paterson says the pine nut tree grows well in the Marlborough climate. FOOD INDUSTRY Pinoli Premium Pine Nuts Moving dirt around Marlborough & beyond for over 20 years PHONE JASON 021 414 805 DIGGERS, TRUCKS, DOZERS all for hire “FOR EVERYTHING ENGINEERING” Mild Steel – Aluminium – Stainless Steel – Machine Shop 11 Warwick Street Blenheim PH 03 579 5570 | office@hrengineering.co.nz Proud to support Pinoli www.boydwilsonelectrical.co.nz Phone 03 572 7448 for your industrial/commercial electrical work. It was a big investment that took years to come to fruition, but the hard work is now paying off for Marlborough-based Pinoli Premium Pine Nuts. The pine nut producer took out supreme champion at the 2023 Outstanding New Zealand Food Producers Awards. It was a thrill to be recognised, sales manager Zoe Thompson said. “We have entered the awards since 2017 with a break last year. Luckily, we decided to enter this year again.” It could be all-consuming for artisan food producers when promoting products, she said. “You can spend lots of effort, time, and money into trying to get noticed, but when you win an accolade such as this, it does amazing things in terms of brand recognition and drawing attention to your product, not to mention team morale. “To be recognised and awarded Supreme Champion by food industry leaders just means everything to us at Pinoli. It makes all the years of hard work worthwhile being acknowledged in such a way, and we know we are well on our way to achieving our aim to grow the best pine nuts in the world. “So much work goes on behind the scenes at Pinoli. Throughout the year we are developing our plantations, nurturing the trees followed by the huge task of harvesting, processing and packaging - all the while we are striving to improve our operations, making them more efficient as our business grows, always looking at ways to make things more sustainable and looking after the environment.” It was a huge team effort, she said. It’s not the company’s first taste of success, having been a finalist at the awards in 2017, silver medalist in 2018, and gold winner in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Pinoli Premium Pine Nuts was founded by Andy and Barbara Wiltshire in 1997 when they established 35 hectares of pine nut plantations. Andy, who had a background in forestry, came across pine nuts while travelling in Europe. General manager Lee Paterson has been with the company since day one and planted the first 30,000 trees back in 1998, using seeds imported from the Mediterranean region. Today, there are 550,000 trees on six properties across Marlborough, covering a total area of around 540 hectares. The company can now use its own seeds to establish more plantations. Six full-time staff are employed, as well as Recognised Seasonal Employer workers for six months of the year. Lee said the pine nut tree – Pinus pinea – grows well in the Marlborough climate. “They are a very hardy pine tree … and they’ve got a very strong root system.” They evolved in the south of Spain - a very dry and harsh climate. “Where nothing else will grow, they grow pine nut trees.” With the climate in Marlborough more forgiving, Lee said they had “broken all sorts of records” for kilogrammes per hectare. “They like a good cold winter and a good hot summer.” It took around ten years before the trees produced enough pine nuts to process, and a factory was built in the Wairau Valley in 2009. The company began supplying the domestic market in 2010, and after importing specialised machines from Spain, began exporting to markets in Europe and Australia in 2013. The domestic market remained strong, particularly in Auckland, and the company now supplied a number of food stores around the country, as well as continuing to supply kernels to Australia and to Europe. “It’s a really lovely organic growth story,” Lee said. “They are a very hardy pine tree … and they’ve got a very strong root system.”
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