Simon Huesser: Huski Co-Founder on the company's success

From a PVC pipe in a Taranaki shed to international success, Huski Coolers has seen its overseas exports surge. 

The company's renowned wine cooler had its largest overseas order, shipping 76 thousand units to the UK as heatwaves rip through Europe. 

The NZ firm is on track to double its eight-figure annual revenue this year. 

Huski Co-Founder Simon Huesser told Mike Hosking they wanted to create a sleek, useful, and stylish item to help keep drinks cool over summer. 

He says you take a cold bottle out of the fridge, put it in a Huski and that's it. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Success story out of Taranaki startup Husky has hit multimillion
dollar profits with their world first wine cooler tech. So
it's a nice free coller keeps the champagne cold for
up to six hours. They've just secured the largest commercial
export order to the UK for seventy six thousand units now.
Simon hiss A is the co founder of Husky and
he's well the Simon, very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Morning, thanks mate.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Well doneh blah. But I've had a look this morning.
It's a good looking thing. What I like most of
all no condensation, because you think the moment you get
cold and condensation all over the table, there's not Is
it magic or what is it?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
The technology had actually been around over one hundred years.
It works in the same way that like a Thermos
Strenk bottle works, but nobody has just turned it around
and kind of used it for wine. With the right
kind of design, you can put it on and because
it keeps the keeps all the cold inside, does the
great job of ntilating. You don't get it cold on
the outside, so you don't get it cold.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
It's got the bottle's got a start cold, so the
Thermo's idea. The bottle must start cold and it will
hold its coldness. Is that right?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
It's it, So you pull the cold bottle from We
wanted it to be super simple. So you pull the
cold bottle from the fridge. You've ad the husky off
the shelf, which is the room temperature. You put the
bottle in the husky. You screw on the lid, and
it doesn't matter what size bottle it is, if it's
an Olfants or a Burgundy or a Bordeaux style bottle,
you screw on the lid and that's all you have
to do. Then you pop it on the table. You
pull your glass of wine with your friends. You notice

(01:22):
that their glasses of wine are you know, half full
or empty, and you unscrew the lid and you top
it up. You don't have to kind of go back
and forward to the fridge, or you don't have to
deal with a nice bucket and condensation.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
So you don't have to call it in the first place.
Are there lots of patents around this or no?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Not really, because the means the base technology has been
around for so long all of those ones have run out,
and then our using it for wine was relatively new.
So there wasn't anything that kind of existed in that space.
And then we add revolved the product. The Wine Caller
was the first one, and then the Champagne Caller, which
one the Red Dot Design Award, has the integrated bottle

(01:59):
stop in the bottom. Because you've got bubbles with sparkling wine,
there's another innovation on it, which so we were able
to want to do a pattern on that.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Which because they are quite stylish, aren't they. I mean,
that's that's as important as anything I think, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
I think it's critical. Like when we were designing it,
especially for wine, it's there's rituals and romance and everything
around that. And we were conscious that were going to
build a product or create a product for this, it's
going to sit on somebody's table. It has to look
really good, it has to perform really well. So yeah,
that was that was super important for us. It had
to match the kind of environment.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Seventy six thousand units, so you've got that many units.
There's a lot of units.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
It was more than we'd produced in the entire year proceeding,
so it was it was a big word for us.
But yeah, we were confident we could make it happen.
We've got really good production partners and with the landing
on the shores in the UK at the moment, and
I can't take it up for because they will be
under Christmas trees.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
I think somewhere well well done. I love a good
success story and well done. Congratulations on that, Simon Whosa.
Husky is the name of the company, and he seemed
so just to explain, just so you're not it's not
on the fridge. It's yes. Husky's Wine Call has been
around for years. But you've got to cool them down
first so they stay cool to keep the wine call.
This isn't cool. I know because I've got a Thermisize

(03:11):
bought a thermis when my hot water tap, and this
my thermist will keep the bottle cool as well, except
because it's got a little hole that won't keep put
a bottle in, so it just keeps liquid. And so
that's just a keep me having to pour your wine
in there with a funnel, haven't you Precisely? No one's
caught me yet, Glynn. Everyone thinks it's water.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
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