The Country 10/04/25: Andy Borland talks to Jamie Mackay

We find the Managing Director of Scales Corp in Shanghai for the 10th anniversary of Primary Collaboration New Zealand Ltd. Plus, we preview next month's Lincoln College Rugby Reunion.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In Shanghai tonight there will be a magnificent banquet and
Donald Trump, I'm assuming won't be invited, but one man
who is is Andy Borlan, Managing director of Scales Corp. Andy.
This is a dinner to celebrate ten year or the
ten year anniversary of the primary collaboration in New Zealand
Shanghai Company Limited. What's all this about?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, well, look at that's an engy that we started
ten years ago, Jamie, to help get I guess, boots
on the ground in China and direct insights from this
massive market up here. And it was an intershould have
born out of a group of us being at Stampord,
you know, getting stories of how difficult it was in China.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
So we took good.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Advice and the company's done well over the ten years,
representing over twenty exporters from New Zealand. So we're pretty
proud of that and it's a really good model.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
So were you wearing your Scales hat ten years ago?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yes, I was, but I was really out there looking
looking for ways to get mister Apple, to get people
in the market in China, and so that was what
my motivation was.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
And you know, we've we've sort of.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Helped these other exporters along the way join us in
a very proper legal structure, you know. And we have
a China company, you gave it the long name. We
call it pcn Z, but that employs twenty odd people
here in Shanghai, and you know, we get around the
market mister Apple team. You know, there's two excellent people.

(01:40):
They're working for us, you know, finding markets for us,
solving problems, you know, working with our team when they
come over. So it's it's it's been incredibly beneficial for
those that have been part of it.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Are all those six original shareholders from ten years ago
still in because there was the likes of Silver Fir
and Farms, Sea Lords and Villa Maria, Pacific Pace.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah yeah, well Pacific Pace is the Apple collaboration that's
with mister Apple, John Bostock and Kiwi Krunch, So we're there.
Villa Maria is still there within the BYN now. The
Silver Fern is still a shareholder, but are sort of
a sleeping one as our Sea Lord and Cono was
an original and I think they sold their shares to Rocket.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
So you know, it's just as the.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Companies get bigger, they graduate out and but then the
other ones just come in as members. James.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
So the big banquet's on tonight, no doubt, talk of
the talk of the dinner will be Trump.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, look, I think he definitely will be. We've got
all our government agencies here.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Ambassador Jonathan Austin's coming, so we get great support from
the New Zealand government agencies up here.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
And look, the message will be giving to the.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Team and you know and to everybody is that you know,
you've got to work on what you can control. And
you know, I say, you know that since these these
tariffs are renounced from a scales perspective, Jamie, two of
our customers in the juice world in America contact contacted
us and said, hey, please keep sending the juice.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
We'll pay the tariff.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
And you know we're going to have those discussions with
all of our customers and you know see where the
where the cost lands if you like. But we've just
got to be the best we can be. Control what
you can control by being a better operator, if you want,
he's got to be more efficient, more determined to win
and get on with a job. That's sort of my
message to my team here and to all of the

(03:35):
other Scales companies that I.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Deal with, Andy, it would be remiss of me not
to mention the Lincoln College Rugby reunion coming up on
the twenty third and twenty fourth of May. I was
at the South Island Airy Event dinner on Tuesday evening.
I invited along an old monitor farmer of mine, John
and his better half Ca Gregan. John's an old Lincoln
rugby player. He's looking forward to the reunion.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Excellent was you know? I was hoping you'd raised that one, Jamie.
I've been.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
I'm still everywhere I'm going, I'm bumping into old Lincoln
College rugby club colleagues and I'm imploring them to come along.
I'm just going to say, it's going to be a
great weekend. It's for a fantastic cause, which we all
know is you know, helping the young people at Lincoln.
You know, you know, probably second and third generations of

(04:26):
those gone by, you know, coming along and having a
great weekend to support rugby across all ages, genders and
you know, social and serious. So we'll be putting on
a great show to raise some money to keep that
good Roop's Wrong rugby club going well.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
John and I were chatting on Tuesday evening. We were
talking about the rugby teams first, second, and third fifteen,
you know, with a good under twenties teams, an under
nineteen or under ninety under eighteen team, but they were
far out numbered by the social teams.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
That's right. Yeah, some hard case names out there which I.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Probably you can't say those, Andy, that was that was
the eighties, Yes.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Exactly, no, but exactly so we're got I know some
guys that are coming that we're in those social teams
and you know where a group of us are playing
golf on Friday, you know, actually to remember a couple
of fantastic guys that haven't made it to Toy twenty
twenty five, so you know, it's a chance to remember
you know, older friends and past friends and just generally

(05:29):
get together and have a great weekend.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Fantastic. If you want to find out more about the
Lincoln College Rugby reunion before it changed to Lincoln University University,
where do you go, Andy.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Well, you can just google Lincoln College Rugby Football Club
Reunion or even just the Lincoln alumni site and you'll
quickly find a link there that you can get going
with the registration.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
Okay, enjoy your banquet tonight. Don't eat and drink too
much in Shanghai.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
No, no, we'll keep it pretty change. Jamie, thanks very
much for hearing the story.