100% Pure New Zealand Honey Ltd - Canterbury Small to Medium Exporter of the Year 2009

100% Pure New Zealand Honey (Formerly Honey Valley New Zealand) is a minnow in the country's liquid gold business, but it has big plans to double its turnover. TINA LAW reports, in the last in a series featuring the Canterbury Export Award winners.

Sunday has always been devoted to family at Honey Valley New Zealand, so the entire family spent time together working in the factory.

So it was in the early days of the Timaru honey exporter, which has a staff of eight.

The firm was set up in 1996 by husband and wife team Steve Lyttle and Carolyn Ball, but the pair only gave up their day jobs in 2003. They used to work every week night and every weekend to get the business to the point of having established markets.

Early Asian customers nicknamed 100% Pure New Zealand Honey (Honey Valley), the "After Dark Trading Company" as they could only get in touch with Lyttle or Ball at night.

"We had huge support from family and friends because they didn't see us otherwise. They'd come out and talk to us and they'd end up here for the rest of the day packing honey."

The couple's eight-year-old daughter, Holly, spent much of the first five years of her life at the factory, where Lyttle had turned the lab into a bedroom.

Lyttle and Ball put everything they had into 100% Pure New Zealand Honey (Honey Valley), even mortgaging their home.

"For the first six years we traded on the borderline. If we'd given up after five or six years we would've lost everything. We would have the clothes we stood up in. It was not a half-pie commitment, everything was on the line," Lyttle said.

One mistake people often made when setting up a business was not making a total commitment to it, Lyttle said.

"If you really want to get up and running you have to do that, otherwise you have to rely on outside investment."

100% Pure New Zealand Honey (Honey Valley), is a $5 million business. Lyttle hopes to increase that to $10m in the next five years by expanding into Europe. He will launch there in October after attending one of the biggest food and beverage trade fairs in the world, Cologne's Anuga fair.

Lyttle and Ball set up the firm after Lyttle was made redundant as general manager of the New Zealand Honey Producers Co- operative, a group he set up more than 25 years ago.

Asian customers rang him at home and said they still wanted to deal with him, which led to 100% Pure New Zealand Honey (Honey Valley), Lyttle said. About 98 per cent of 100% Pure New Zealand Honey (Honey Valley), revenue is gained from exporting to 12, mostly Asian, countries. Honey is sourced from 100 beekeepers from Kaitaia to Te Anau and 15 varieties are made.

Most customers design their own labels and sell the honey in department stores or high-end delicatessens.

Adding value to the honey with packaging meant 100% Pure New Zealand Honey (Honey Valley), could command a premium price, which also enabled it to pay its beekeepers more than other buyers. Because of that, Lyttle said he was constantly having to turn suppliers away.

100% Pure New Zealand Honey (Honey Valley), pays about $6 a kilo compared with $4.75 to $4.80 being paid by most companies.

Each pottle of honey can be tracked back to the geographic location of the hives, an important selling point.