The next bit
our Story Continues
It’s been over two years now since we launched The Taipa Salt Pig on the 19th of January 2019, and there has been so much that has happened in that time. So much that we thought we needed to update the web page story to keep you up to date.
The great news is that The Taipa Salt Pig has really started to develop a life of its own. It seems hard to believe looking back at the photos of those first few markets, where we honestly didn’t have a clue, all the way to where we are today. Some uncharitable souls would say we are still without a clue, but we can definitely say we are a lot older and wiser than we were at the start. So, what lessons have we learned? Well, let’s see.
Without salt there is no salt business. When I first told people that I was going to build a salt farm, the facial expressions I got were priceless. I got told so many times “it’ll never work” or “why don’t you just buy salt and flavour it!” I really think they just missed the point.
We wanted to sell salt for a living, but we wanted to sell our salt, and that was going to be our point of difference. Where is the satisfaction in bulk buying salt and just packaging it, to me that’s almost cheating? So, despite the laughter, the odd ball comments and looks of confusion we stuck to our guns, and it turns out we were right.
Making salt isn’t a well-known business. In fact, you would be surprised how many people out there have no idea how salt is made. We had experimented in our back yard in Hamilton, but we had never really tried to do anything at scale. That was to be the first obstacle.
When I look back now at how much salt we made in that first year it kind of scares me that we continued to push social media and shop sales. We came dangerously close at times to completely running out of salt.
From the single tunnel house we had, and just the crystal palace, a small greenhouse next to our veggie patch, we managed to make about 20 to 30 kilos of salt every 3-4 weeks. Now we’ve got a whole retaining wall covered in evaporators as well as the existing units and we are pumping out 70 kilos every 2-3 weeks.
It’s been a big step up but it’s still not enough to meet demand as we grow. In 2021-22 our goal is to build more evaporators and to add some new technology to help us reach our ultimate goal for this little production unit of 1 Tonne of salt. Can we do it? You bet we can.
The source is everything.
A big part of our story in the start was Puheke beach. I believe that one of the reasons why our product is as good as it is starts with the water we use. Undoubtedly Puheke Beach was a big part of that story. I truly love that beach, the way it feels and the quality of the water. However, nothing lasts for ever right. The local Iwi of the Karikari Peninsula contacted us in the middle of 2020 and advised us that they had some concerns. So, we took the opportunity to visit the Marae, present details of our operation and to give the people the chance to decide whether The Pig could continue to take water from Puheke beach.
It was a very sad day for me when we received the decision that the people had voted not to allow us to continue to take water off the beach, but in the end, I had promised them it was their decision and we would respect it. To be honest it’s a big part of what we are all about and there is never a downside to doing the right thing and respecting peoples wishes.
Puheke remains in our hearts as the spiritual starting place of The Taipa Salt Pig, but for the time being we are grabbing our water from elsewhere. Whether its 90-mile Beach, Cable Bay or various private beaches spread around the far north, one thing you can be sure of is that we try to find the best and cleanest water we can. Luckily in the far north there is plenty of clean fresh sea water to go around.
This year we are working on a project to go nautical in our collection process. In the planning stages is a purpose-built pontoon boat with on board tanks, electric outboards and a hand powered pump system that will allow is to grab water from deeper water. “The Black Pig Pontoon” will be setting sale sometime this season so watch this space.
Sometimes your product is better than you think.
Trust me when I say that every Artisan producer suffers a crisis of confidence when they start out. I’m not saying it’s a lack of self-confidence, because of course we all think our product is the best. Usually our friends and family also say it’s the best, but in the back of everyone’s mind is that still unanswered question…..”How good is it really?”
Its one of the reasons why when you get some trusted, experienced and truly legendary third party to tell you your product is indeed good, you finally feel like you’ve arrived.
2020 was the year this truly happened for “The Little Pig” from Taipa. It started when we managed to get endorsement from some true New Zealand food legends. As well as making salt for Kauri Cliffs kitchen under the leadership of Executive Chef Barry Frith, we’ve also been lucky enough to supply salt to the team at the Grove in Auckland and Hippopotamus in Wellington. Perhaps our biggest supporters this year though have been the team at Homeland in Auckland, owned and operated by that culinary dynamic duo Peter Gordon and Alistair Carruthers. A big part of the Homeland Ethos is to champion and support local artisan and small-scale producers, to give them a voice and to help grow their businesses. We were indeed fortunate to team up with Homeland from the very start of their business and we were also fortunate to have a Champion pushing our Northland corner to Peter and Al in the form of Dancing Chef Natasha MacAller. Between the three of them they have given The Pig a giant boost in these difficult times.
On the back of those endorsements, we took the plunge and entered our plain salt in the Outstanding Food Producers Awards this year. It’s always a nervous time waiting for the results, but we were delighted to be awarded a silver medal at the 2021 awards.
Now of course we are at a bit of a crossroads. The Pig has arrived, and it’s now had its set menu of salts on offer for two years. The flavours we offer are popular, but as usual just sitting on your laurels isn’t something we do that well at The Pig. In our first year we tried a little foray into some other flavours, with some success, and in the winter of 2019, we also launched our Meatstock range, which was also a hit. The problem has always been that winter has been a salt production low point and so the amount of salt we could dedicate to new flavours has always been limited. This year we think we have enough salt to fully launch a new range of Autumn and Winter salts, all of which are now part of our full flavoured salt range.
Don’t underestimate the power of social media.
As a crusty old man these days, that’s right I am definitely getting older, the Social Media craze had simply passed me by. But I am a lucky man. I have three kids who are all locked into this modern phenomenon and who all understand it better than I do. Now I’m not the sort of Salt Baron who likes singling out any of his kids for extra praise, but in this case, I have to. My Daughter Katie who lives in London, where she runs her own successful business, is super clued into this modern phenomenon. In 12 months, she has managed to develop our online store to the point now that it’s generating a significant amount of our total business and growing all the time.
I get asked a lot of the time by people in small businesses in Northland “how do you generate sales?”, and while it’s not all an online phenomenon, it’s a big part of it now. It’s no longer good enough to have a web landing page with contact details and a couple of pictures, and it’s also not good enough to offer average run of the mill posts on any platform with average pictures. Similarly, you can’t just rely on third party web-based markets to sell your products, you have to take ownership yourself.
So, if you are a bit challenged in this area like me, get out there and find yourself a champion. It’s not cheap I know, but it’s where the world is going. The lockdowns over these past 2 years have opened New Zealanders eyes to the world of online shopping, and if you are stuck in that mindset that things will go back to normal after this is all over, I think you are wrong.
Join the rest of the world New Zealand, accept that online commerce is not just a fad, it’s the way of the future.
Good Ideas deserve to be shared.
The History of salt making in New Zealand is to be honest not a rich one. Since New Zealand was first colonised in 1841 there have been several attempts to make salt, but by and large they all failed. It was in the 1940’s that Dominion Salt started operations at the top of the South Island at a place called Lake Grassmere, that New Zealand began making its own salt on a large scale. Dominion’s Grassmere operation is still running today, and if you ever get the chance to visit the facilities there, it is a very interesting trip well worth a stop. Even with Grassmere though New Zealand still imports around 50% of its total salt consumption, which when you consider New Zealand is surrounded by water seems just a little crazy.
Now I’m not suggesting The Taipa Salt Pig is going to fill that void, to be honest its not in our DNA. We prefer the small-scale operation which is why over the next few years you will start to see other Salt Pigs popping up around various parts of New Zealand’s coast. We love the idea of sharing our idea with other people around New Zealand with the long-term goal of developing a network of small-scale artisan Salt Producers, making sea salt from local sea water for sale in local markets and beyond.
It seems to us that people have become more interested in where their food comes from and how it is made. The word Sustainable gets thrown around with wild abandon these days, and more often than not, I’m not even sure if the people using it really know what it means. So, at The Pig we’ve committed ourselves to becoming New Zealand’s most sustainable small business. Cutting down food miles and using old fashioned manual techniques for producing our products is just part of the philosophy we want to develop. If the Little Pig from Taipa can start a genuine movement rather than a “greenwash” spin culture in business, then surely that’s got to be good for everyone, and if we can help set locals up in their own small salty business, then we are all for that.
Never stop dreaming.
If I’m honest, when I first came up with the idea for the salt business, I’m not sure I actually imagined it would really get off the ground. But now that it has happened it’s like a fire has been lit under the wee Pigs imagination. This little update on our story covers what’s happened over the last two years but trust me it’s just the start. Over the last twelve months in particular, we’ve met some really amazing people with some really amazing ideas of their own and that’s a powerful thing. Because when a group of people combine their imaginations, you suddenly find links that lead to even greater ideas.
This year we are going to launch what I think is a truly genius little add on to the salt business. The handful of people we’ve spoken to about this idea are truly excited and can’t believe it hasn’t been done before. At the end of the day the idea was just sitting there under our noses, and all it took was a message to the right person in the right place to unlock the potential. There are in this world some extraordinary people, doing extraordinary things and often their ideas never see the light of day. This one we promise to shine as much light on as we can and I guess in the end you will be the judges of how good it really is.
So that’s it really. This brings the web page finally up to date with where we are at right now and where we are looking to go next. Keep watching you salty fans, the Pig isn’t finished growing yet and we think the next few years are going to be exciting for all of us.
The Pig says cheers.