November 12, 2025 • 36 mins
New Zealand produces enough food to feed 40 million people. Some of it we consume and some some we export.
But a staggering 30% of the food we make or grow goes to waste.
Fruit and vegetables need to look a certain way to make it onto supermarket shelves – or they get tossed.
Angus Simms and his partner Katie Jackson wanted to tackle that problem - so they started Wonky Box three years ago.
This is the subscription food box full of wonky fruit and veg that’s delivered to your door.
Their business has grown way bigger and faster than they ever thought, but it hasn’t been smooth sailing along the way.
Angus joined Kerre Woodham in the latest episode of Bosses Unfiltered to share his story.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The big winds and the big losses, the hurdles, the pivots,
and the emotions, raw and honest, New Zealand's great business
minds like you've never heard them before. This is Bosses
Unfiltered with Kerry Woodham used talksed be.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
New Zealand produces enough food to feed forty million people.
Some of it we consume, some we export, but are staggering.
Thirty percent of the food we make or grower is wasted.
Fruit and veggies need to look a certain way to
make it onto supermarket shelves or they get tossed. Angus
Sims and his partner Katie Jackson started Wonky Box three
(00:40):
years ago, a subscription food box full of wonky fruit
and veg that's still a bit to your door. Their
business has grown way bigger and faster than they ever thought,
but it has not been smooth sailing. I'm Kerrie Woodhem.
This is Bosses Unfiltered, a podcast series about what it's
really like to run a business.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Hello Anger, Hi Kerry.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Did you imagine that an idea that came to you
when you were out picking fruit in the fields would
grow into a sustainable business.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
We had that intention from day one. I guess what
we didn't understand was necessarily the scale, and I guess
that was the hardest part to always pinpoint and probably
one of our biggest challenges that I'm sure we'll go
into was navigating that growth and the ultimately the subscriber
(01:31):
number and at the end of the day, trying to
accommodate however many boxes we were doing week to week
and with that growth. Yeah, Look, there were plenty of
surprises along their way, but I think we initially set
ourselves up to create something that was very much purpose,
purposeful and sustainable.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Okay, because your backstory of coming here, you were doing
you were over in England, came back to New Zealand
during the COVID years yep, and then you were picking
for it. It sounds like a kind of care free existence,
not like would be entrepreneur business people.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
No, absolutely, and it was it was Yeah, I mean,
we we you know, it was somewhat cliche. I suppose
at the end of the day. We did make the
break to come back to New Zealand at the time
when we'd been through a lockdown through in the UK,
the first one at least, and my family and where
I grew up or part of my childhood was in
was in New Zealand, and at some point Katie we
(02:26):
wanted to you know, I wanted to bring her down
here and show her the ropes down here and so on,
and we did. We wanted that freedom, We wanted to
escape the UK at that at that very point in time,
came down here and at that point, you know, New
Zealand was was still was, you know, wasn't lockdown, and
everyone was was doing their thing down here, and it
(02:46):
was a breath of fresh air to get back into
that routine again. And we did, you know, we got
we got the Campa van. We bought that with the
savings that we'd had in the UK having worked at
our jobs for many, many years, and started try traveling
around New Zealand, showing Katie all the wonderful things that
New Zealand has to offer. But like most travelers, at
(03:07):
some point, we probably overdid it and we were doing
it for far too long and we ran out of money,
and naturally when we were running out of money, we
were kind of on the final stretch. So we started
in Auckland. We traveled the North Island for a couple
of months, then we did the South Island where we
actually stayed put for about six odd months, and then
when we were coming back up around Nelson was when
(03:28):
we decided, do you know what, we need to get
back into some work. And we didn't know what we
wanted to do, so we were on the start of
summer at that point, and we thought, let's go do
let's go do some picking, let's go do some you know,
some harvest prep and things like that, things that we
never really thought we would get stuck into, but just
kind of like a somewhat care free job and still
(03:49):
live in that lifestyle in our van. And that's where
we were exposed to the issue, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Of the food wastage of food that wasn't perfect, fruit
that wasn't.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Perfect, totally yep, yep, no. And we it wasn't just us,
We had friends as well down there. At that point.
We'd made enough friends that were working at other orchards
and so on, and hearing stories from neighboring orchards and
neighboring growers as well who were facing that same problem.
We kind of thought, look, there's perfectly good food here
that could be consumed or or at least provided to
(04:22):
consumers in a better way.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, so did you ask the questions where does this
where does this fruit go?
Speaker 4 (04:28):
We were seeing it, Yeah, it was just getting dumped,
like you know, it was either not being picked in
the tree or it had been picked and then dumped.
What we've learned since then, obviously on our journey, is
that there's there's particular food waste moments in the supply chain,
and I suppose from experience working on some of these farms,
(04:48):
we were experiencing a lot of pre harvest waste. So
that's when growers can anticipate products that might not necessarily
meet specifications. So in that regard, they actually saved themselves
the time resource and just not pick it at all. Ultimately,
what happens to that fruit or that produce is that
it's left there and it will fall from the tree,
or it will rot and be used to mulch back
(05:09):
in to the ground when the tractor mows it and
so on. So that's one particular area, or the often
more frustrating area is when the growers actually harvested the product.
So he's gone about, he's you know, the team have
been through it, they've pulled, they've harvested from the from
the trees or from the plants, they've taken that to
the pack house to grade, and then from their post harvest,
(05:31):
if you like, they've realized that X amount of product
that they've harvested can't be sent to the local market
and things like that. So, yeah, it was there where
we got insights into into where in the supply chain
the problems were happening.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Most people, though, who were doing the pecking, go back
to the camper van and think, God, it's what a
bloody waste, and then you'd have a drink and that
would be the end of it. Why did you think
you could make money out of it?
Speaker 4 (05:57):
I guess I guess what we were we and don't
get me wrong, we were doing that. We were definitely
going back and the culture that those places provide was awesome,
without a doubt, and I suppose we were Ultimately I was.
I don't know whether it was me in particular. I
was just so interested in understanding the perspective from the grower,
(06:20):
So I used to, I suppose, go about a lot
more than most other workers and ask probably far too
many questions, nosing questions, that is, with the grower and
show genuine interest because I actually was interested. And I
guess it was the frustrations that we were seeing from
these these business owners at the end of the day
that really drove us to think, how can we or
(06:41):
can we create more value in this product for the
grower at the end of the day. And yeah, like
you know, we didn't really know at the time, but
when we left there and went to Wellington, we were
kind of pretty set to do some more homework.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
In it and start a business.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
And start a business.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, so right from the start you thought you could
turn it into business.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
We thought so, Like you know, we'd seen in New
Zealand in the local market, we'd seen the likes of
the Odd Bunch, which is Bullworth's's I suppose range. And again,
like you go into the supermarket, you have the option
to purchase that, but no one was necessarily doing that
in the home delivery space. And what we were thinking was, well,
how can we get the product to more Kibi households,
(07:23):
not just those that are walking into supermarkets every day,
So like, surely that there's a there's a niche there,
or there's something that we can be doing there.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I guess. COVID then worked in your favor with our
into and out of lockdowns because people were still relying
on subscription services, or at least had been introduced to
subscription services if they hadn't used them already for sure.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Yeah, no, And I think for you talk to any
business owner that had a online business that is around
that period, and yeah, there was definitely a huge spike
and some great momentum off the back of covid in
terms of interest and people purchasing products, especially in food
as well. So you know, I think, you know, food
being a basic need and people being forced to stay
(08:06):
at home, it was a case of right, we're going
to have to fundamentally do a lot of our our
food shopping online.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So were you you know, in your previous work in
the UK, had you or Katie been involved in website
creation or.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
No, not at all.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
My background was I'd worked for a couple of kind
of I suppose what they branded themselves as fintech companies.
So these were like I suppose, digital first lending platforms
that would primarily be working with small medium sized businesses
in the UK to offer funding outside of traditional funding
sources like banks and things like that. And then Katie
(08:44):
her background was a she was a psychiatric nurse at
the NHS. So you know, neither of us had any
real idea what we were getting into.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
And so once you had a basic idea for a
business plan, did you go to the banks first?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
No?
Speaker 4 (08:59):
So so what we did was we took the last
of our savings from the works and Nelson actually, which
was no more than five k at the end of
the day, and we just said, right, we've got five
k here. We're living with a really dear friend of
ours in Wellington who is now in our business and
works full time as well. And his background wasn't in accounting,
(09:21):
so he was an accountant and that was one area
that Katie and I were again not close to it all.
So we kind of just said to Connor at the time, look,
we've got this idea, we're living with you. Can we
pack the boxes here, can we do everything from your house?
And can you ultimately work work the nuts and bolts
in terms of zero and accounting and you know, together
(09:43):
all three of us will have a share in this
business because we couldn't pay him anything, right, like, we
had this five thousand dollars to basically set up a
Shopify store, probably go out and buy our first order
of produce and then that was it. You know, we
kind of hope by that point that we had orders
to actually fulfill the investment, the small investment that we
needed to put in. And so I think I think
(10:06):
what was great with having I suppose a friends and
family and in Wellington was that the you know, they
introduced us to their networks. So we got put in
touch with a local packaging distributor in Wellington who was
a family friend, and you know, they were very kind
(10:27):
to us in our early days. They set us up
and got us an account without having to verify any
credit references and things like that. And I suppose we
were using our friends and family at that point to
introduce us to people and lean on that to actually
get accounts set up in order to trade. But very
much like one of the things with having the online
(10:48):
business was we didn't necessarily need massive amounts of funding
because as soon as we were able to get a
product in front of people online and they were happy
to purchase it, we were never online businesses. What happens
is you paid upfront, essentially right money's in the bank
account before before you actually delivered the product.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
But people have to know about you before they can pay,
So how did you get some noise?
Speaker 4 (11:12):
So in the early days, and we did this for
about probably i would say a good year before we
even spent a dollar on marketing, was we felt that
we had a we were doing something very niche and timing,
again with covid was everything.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
People were at home.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
People's presence on social media were more because they were
just work, either working from home or not out doing activities,
so they were mucking around on Facebook, Instagram and the likes.
So we would we would be telling our story and
telling people what we were doing via community pages. When
we started the business and we were delivering those initial packages,
we were very much focused on ensuring that we were
(11:53):
covering ground enough ground in the smallest amount or the
lowest condensed area. So what we did was we are
going onto these community pages and telling our story, sharing
photos of the farmers, the produce, us ultimately doing doing
doing the work, and and that ultimately drove the initial
(12:13):
sales and the initial uptate that we had. And yeah,
we we didn't actually you know, we we probably as
we were expanding through Wellington and Wellington by the way,
is very hard city to start in any kind of
delivery logistics company because the infrastructure and everything else is
very challenging the Hills Rose Hills. Yeah, and try doing
(12:36):
that in in a in a in a small box
truck and borrowing people's friends vans and crashing crashing one
every other weekend.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
It was a nightmare.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
But ultimately that growth initially simply started from from utilizing Yeah,
those community pages.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Many many at home businesses started up through community Facebook pages.
Not many continued on past COVID. Yep, why did yours?
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I guess, I guess we We were at a point
in our business on the tail end of COVID to
make a call as to really if we wanted to
chase this down and become a nationwide business or whether
or not we were happy doing what we were doing
in Wellington. And and you know what we wanted we
(13:24):
want we wanted to make a bigger impact. At the
end of the day, we were getting you know, we
were getting reached out by growers up and down the country,
and not all of them were logistically capable of delivering
into Wellington. But what we identified was more problems happening
up and down the country and four different growers. So
if we could make an impact further north and service
(13:47):
customers further north, and we could do the same in
the South Island from from having these people reach out
and seeing this, then that was enough I suppose motivation
for Kadie and I to actually say, look, let's let's
let's put everything into this in terms of our I
guess effort and really go for it.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
And so that grower lead rather than consumer lead.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
It pivoted.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
It started off as consumer lid because in the early days,
I think it was very challenging for us to often
convince the growers that there was an appetite for this product.
For years, decades, these growers had been throwing a lot
of this product out or we're finding it very challenging
to find a home for this product, whereas now I
think we were really we were trying to push it
(14:35):
so hard in the eyes of the consumers who were
very adoptable. They were taking it on board, they were
loving the product. They were you know, we were asking
them every single week feedback on the product, what we
could be doing better, et cetera, et cetera. That I
think it actually shocked a lot of growers because a
lot of growers initially were pushing back on the idea.
And there are other reasons why growers wouldn't necessarily want
(14:57):
what they would call like a byproduct or an ugly
version of their product in the market as well, and
we can go into that in a bit more detail.
But initially I think it was to some a bit
of a shock to to sort of see the numbers
and see where it was tracking and where we were heading.
Eventually it pivoted where I think growers, you know, they
(15:18):
talked to other growers and and and ultimately the world
was getting out of the value that we were that
we were adding for some of these growers. And and
yet then we got ourselves into a very good position
where we had a lot of them reaching out to us.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Were the growers concerned that any kind of contract they
had with the supermarkets might be impacted by by giving
their won key route to you not really.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
I think the supermarkets, you know, they predominantly they'll want
to take the best looking product. You know, it's a
brick and mortar store you walk in, the first thing
people see when they walk into the supermarkets the produce.
It's where all the bright colors are it's where you
get emotional, it's where it's you know, it's the impression
that gives off. So it's within their interest to be
stocking and showcasing the best of the best of the bunch,
(16:05):
if you like. And I guess what we were doing
was we were saying to the grower, quite simply, of
the stuff that you're not sending there, we're a good
option for you, you know, the few or the limited
options that they have or had, we were hoping that
we could deliver better value. And so ultimately it wasn't
it wasn't a big concern for most.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
A few skinny pigs will be brassed off that they're
not getting the kind of fis that's.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Absolutely Yeah, the neighbors livestock that they would typically chuck
over the fence to them.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, perhaps absolutely.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
But that's a big big call to go from being
really comfortable and you know, having quite a nice little
set up in Wellington to expanding at nationwide. That is
a lot more headaches, yeah for you.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
And there were moments before we got there where we
were testing out, you know, testing testing out initially, because
we were doing everything at the start.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Well, and you also lose a bit of control, quality controls,
you know, the service you provide. You have to trust
that other people are going to do as good a
job as you. It's hard to let go of it
control when it's just been youw.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
It absolutely, it absolutely was.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
So that was a real pivotal moment I think for
us in Wellington was when we first tested the outsourcing
of our deliveries. And you know we now partner with
for all of our nationwide home home delivery boxes, we
partner with New Zealand Posts. But before we before we
moved into the New Zealm Post era we call it,
(17:39):
we started to contract our deliveries out to individuals with
Vance as well.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
I remember the first time.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
We did that though, we had a chat approach us
and say I'm seeing you guys out on the road
and you're doing these deliveries and we were. And at
that point in time it was us people that we'd
hired internally to do that, or vans we were borrowing.
I think at one point in time in Wellington we
were hiring i think eight City Hot vans on the
(18:11):
weekend and City Hot got really annoyed with us because
because you know, we were taking all their vans away
and and and yeah, well other people weren't able to
borrow them on a particular Saturday, which of course is
a huge day for when people need to go do
handy work or move this stuff. But but basically, the
first time we were approached by someone to do it,
(18:33):
you know, we we were thinking, well, look, if we
do this, then how much how much? How much work
is that going to take off our hands? And Kady
and I were hamming an airing it for a couple
of weeks and we just decided to go for it.
And I remember coming home in the afternoon on that Saturday.
I believe it was quite nervous to think that the
(18:53):
boxes were out getting delivered and it was a really
I remember it was a really terrible.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Day as well.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
It was it was rain, it was pouring, and I
was thinking, wow, this is insane. We're inside having a
cup of tea at one o'clock on a Saturday afternoon,
not out there hustling delivering boxes. And then we had
a phone call from the driver who was in Platoni
at the time, and he phoned us to say that nah,
(19:20):
this wasn't cut out for him. He wasn't going to
do it, so then we had to chuck on our
ranger hits, jump back in after just getting that little
bit of hope, and then go and meet him unload
his van full of boxes into our cars at the
time because we hadn't pre prepared to hire other vans.
Deal with a very awkward situation at the time, but
then ultimately go and finish off the runs, right. But
(19:42):
that was an interesting time because you know, we were
sat there at that point having gotten home that evening
and going well, we tried it. It doesn't work. But
I think Katie's very good because she turned to me
and said, look, it doesn't have to work the first
time at the end of the day, and maybe I
was a bit stuck with that thought at the time,
but she's absolutely right, Like it didn't work that first time,
(20:03):
but we rolled the dice.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
We did it again. We found someone else and it
did work.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
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Speaker 2 (20:29):
When it comes to how good looking the fruit and
the veggies are, and you talked about the gross being
a bit concerned that they didn't want their product to
be associated with something less than perfect, and the supermarkets
like having perfect things at the front. Do you think
it's because we've lost our connection with food that we
don't have the fruit trees in the backyard anymore, so
(20:49):
you don't know that you can nibble round a bruise
or a wormb you know, which we used to do
when you picked fruits off your grandparents' trees.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Totally, Like I think, I think a big part of
it is the expectations that consumers have set themselves, you know,
like we want products that are out of season all
year round, because you know, we expect that. So supermarkets,
you know, in their defense, they're doing their absolute best
just to just to try and meet the once and
(21:17):
the desires of consumers at the end of the day.
And I guess what Wonky Box is doing is is
slightly different. We're encouraging the seasonality aspect of things. We're
encouraging that the produce that we're sourcing is still extremely
good to eat, it's extremely fresh, it's straight from the grower,
so there are no middlemen, straight to the consumer. And
(21:39):
if it's got scars, if it's got an odd shape,
it's slightly too small, it's slightly too big. That's just
part of the fun at the end of the day, right,
And it helps because it means that the grower, the
growers getting a return, our customers should be satisfied. And ultimately,
if you know, if we want to try and save
(22:01):
money as as as a society, as a population, then
a great way to do that is eating within the seasons,
you know. And I think I think that it all
leads down to that conversation that's constantly being had about
the supermarkets and you know, pricing and so on and
so forth. But like a lot of it stems from
us at the end of the day, it does.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
And so instead of opening the reciee book and saying, right,
I'm going to make that for dinner, you open the
walky box and you go.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Right, what can can I make?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Correct, just part of the fun.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
And you know, if there's if there's unusual products in there,
which there are from time to time.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Carl Rabi is a really good few people.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Like you know, we have at our
customer's availability online recipes.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
You know, we'll push them.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
We're not necessarily saying you need to use these recipes,
but if you're stuck for inspiration, then they're there and
they're available.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah. I remember that we used to have a local
butcher we don't now in my neighborhood and he was
asked by a couple of Yummy Mummies if he could
please take down the carcasses because it frightened the littles
when they came in to get the sausages. And it's like,
you have to know where your food comes from.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Total.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I really think there's an obligation on the consumer to
know it's not always going to be perfect, it's not
always going to be there. You have to if there's
been a bad season, you just have to get with
what's available.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
I think the distance between or the connection between where
our food comes from and what we know is becoming greater, and.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
It confuses us.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Then when we go about and we're having to pay
this price for this product or this price for that product,
we just you know, we default assume that whoever's selling
it is ripping us off. But at the end of
the day, there's so much more deeper into the supply chain,
there's so much more of a reason as to why
it is that And I think that right now, consumers,
you know, those kind of stories are far less told
(23:50):
right when you're looking at what when you look at
the media and you're hearing about some of the stories
about why we're paying X amount for products at the
supermarket as well, I think it's quite easy for the
media to point their finger at the supermarkets, whereas you know,
someone like myself who's been in the trenches now for
three years and ideal and speak with growers every single day,
I fundamentally can understand why the products are priced where
(24:14):
they're at. And I think Wonky Box, you know, we're
trying to tell that story more so.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
You started with five K. Yeah, where are you at
now three years.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
On in terms of savings or in terms of.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
In terms of the company. So Wonkey Box would have
had five K. That would have been its capital.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Yeah, ultimately, and now you know we're we're a bigger business.
We've got you know, we've got I think full time
in the company we've got five five individuals, each playing
their own significant part plus more. You know, we were
always stretching ourselves to do more. Ultimately, before we decide
to bring in someone someone new, we want to we
(24:54):
want to make sure that higher or that new hire
is going to be worthwhile doing.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Where are we now? We're also so.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
We're picking packing in two islands. So we've got a
site in the South Island, a site in the North Island.
Any given time on a Wednesday and a Thursday, which
are our production days, we've got about fifty staff up
and down the country contributing to the mission and packing boxes.
And you know, you go beyond that, you look at
(25:21):
your contractors and how many couriers are out delivering the boxes.
You know that it stretches even further. So, yeah, we're
much bigger business than where we were three years ago,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Are you a success yet?
Speaker 3 (25:37):
That's I guess, Yeah, what does success look like?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
It's different for everybody, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (25:44):
It is?
Speaker 4 (25:44):
It is And right now I think Katie and I
we you know, we're dabbling. We dabbling our toes and
many new things. The wonky pantry, We've got wonky flowers.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Because flowers are supposed to be good looking.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Correct, Yes, so this is interesting, it's a whole and
predominantly what we find in New Zealand is a lot
of the reason why they tailor into the wonky why
they're in that wonky brand is not just necessarily the appearance.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
It could be surplus.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
For example, So this country we have very few flower growers,
and of the ones that we have, they often take
a gamble because they've got Valentine's date, they've got Mother's date,
they've got Christmas, they've got these periods of the year
where they're selling five times as much product than they
would every other week of the year. But during those
(26:34):
kind of not so peak periods of the year, they're
still trying to actually make sure they have enough to
supply supermarkets and florists and so on and so forth.
And with the trim whilst we've seen a shift and
seen less and less growers producing flowers in the country,
those ones that are producing flowers need to make sure
they're growing enough to basically service the country. So we
(26:54):
were called down from one of our growers that supplies
as veggies and the White Kettow, very long standing partnership
we have with these guys. They also happened to be
the largest flower grower in the country, and so they
actually invited us down there on I think the week
after Valentine's Day and they said, look, we've got someone
to show you, and this is a peak for us,
(27:16):
but like we have this problem week to week when
we're managing orders and so on and so forth. And
we went down there and we didn't really know what
they were talking about. They were keeping it very hush hush.
And we got there and we got invited to the farm,
not the farm gate where we typically go to see
the veggies, but to their flower side of it, their
their flower orchard, the tunnels over that area, which is
(27:36):
just a k or two down the road.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
And we went in and.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
You know, we saw this huge pile of flowers and
what looked like very normal looking regular flowers that were
just dumped outside the pack site. And we said, well,
what's going on here, and they said, well, this is
this is the problem. Like a lot of this, he said,
about seventy percent of it will be surplus that we
just have harvested, and we can't do anything with twenty
(28:04):
to thirty percent the stems might be too short, a
leaf might be broken on the on the actual stem
that will remove anyway, but it still doesn't fit within
the spec that some of the local markets asked for,
and so they said, could we be doing something with this?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
So that was GROO. That's interesting.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Yeah, grower lead is first and foremost the mission, right
Do you and Kadie like being bosses?
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (28:31):
And no.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
I think we like doing things and I think being
a leader can be extremely challenging but an absolute must. Right, Like,
we've got this very lean structure to our business, and
we've got really really, really good, amazing staff within the
(28:55):
company who are all driven by the mission at the
end of the day, and yeah, we've we've got to
manage We've got to manage them. We've got our best
friend who's the accountant, and that's you know, again, fun
interesting dynamic that one. But I think respectively, we we're
doing that as well as doing everything else within the business.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
So and finding the right person must be so difficult
because when it's that smaller team that interdependent and interconnected,
the wrong person could be a disaster.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
For sure, for sure.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
I think, I think and you know, we've got we've
had mentors who are now advisors slash you know, directors
within the business now who have had great experience that
they've brought to to our board and at the end
of the day, you know, governance and everything else. So
these guys have been there to really help guide us
in how we make these decisions around hiring and fundamentally,
(29:50):
I think the number one rule for Katie and I
when we're making a key hire is we know where
in the business someone needs to be, we know what
they need to do, and ultimately, can we trust that
they're going to do and even better job than what
we're going to be able to do. And that's that's
been our mantra, right like is actually finding people better
than ours for certain pockets within the business and trusting
(30:11):
them at the end of the day. Like you know,
we're small business at the end of the day, and
I think for us, it's you have to have that
trust component, right because we're not going to be there
to micromanagement the whole time. We're going to be out
there trying to grow the business and do more.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
And it is a business that you started together, you
work together, you still have to have a relationship together
how do you manage the.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Two I we get We get asked that question quite often,
and surprisingly I think that well, we always say we
always we always say to each other at the end
of the day, thank goodness, we're doing this together. Like
all of the hard times that come with owning a business,
(30:54):
I feel for the people that are out there hustling
by themselves in and I suppose a fan and in
the founder seat and so on. At least with us
being I suppose in a relationship at the same time,
we can call on each other whenever we need, We
can express how we're feeling, just quite comfortably and honestly
(31:15):
and openly.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Look, it works, it works really well for us. At
the end of the day. Yeah, it hasn't been a problem.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Do you have a figure in mind as to win,
You'll say, we've made it.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
For us. It's all just purely about.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Doing more with more suppliers, the grower ladmission and being
able to do that, I suppose at a greater level,
not just in the farming space, the horticultural space, but
potentially into the pantry and now obviously the floric culture
and things like that. For us, we just there's no
real end goal just yet we're just hustling day to day,
(31:54):
week to week at the moment, trying to do more,
trying to do better.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Can businesses sustain themselves elves through, especially through those really
difficult first years if money is the only driving motivator
or do you have to have something bigger behind what
you're doing?
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Look, I think I think the purpose the purpose first
mindset has gotten us through so many challenges at the
end of the day and throw through so much more
than I imagine a lot of people could cope with.
And look, you've always got to be focused on your numbers.
You've always got to be every decision that you're making,
(32:34):
you need to sense check that with your profit and
loss forecasts and so on that we actually spend time
on weekly. And sometimes you're making decisions that you want
to do, but you can't do, you know, because because
it doesn't make sense from the numbers perspective. And during
those periods it can be quite daunting because then you
don't know how you're going to get through and get
(32:55):
to the next stage. But somehow, one way or another,
it always works out.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Have you paid yourself yet?
Speaker 3 (33:01):
You and yeady yea, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, we
pay ourselves.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, yeah, good, All right, We've got some quick fire
questions for you. What is your favorite fruit.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
And veg My favorite fruit and vege is the very
expensive passion fruit.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
SAME's so good.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
They're even they're even more expensive this season and I'm
still I'm still trying to find out why, but yeah,
can't beat it.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
What do you do when things get tough?
Speaker 4 (33:28):
Katy and I have each other at the end of
the day, and I think that gets us through a lot.
We catch up with our team, everyone in our team
every single week, so, like you know, we we want
to we want to make sure that we're there for
them first and foremost. And ultimately there are highs, there
are lows. But I suppose with the lows, what we
(33:50):
do is we just we always know that we can
get We're always going to get through. Like I said,
we've got an outstanding team. Every single one of them
is a hustler and and yeah, well we get through.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Where do you get the best ideas from other people
from brainstorming from aha moments when you because obviously with
the grower, that with the flowers that came.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
From that, so two places, really our customers or our suppliers.
You know, we're so engaged with our suppliers that a
lot of the inspiration, the innovation comes from them. We're
a supply driven business at the end of the day,
and everything we're doing is for the greater good for
the suppliers, whether that be the flower supplies, whether that
be pantry supplies, whether that be the growers. So a
(34:30):
lot of a lot of ideas now come from these guys,
now that we've proven that we're a viable and reliable
source for these for these producers, you know, they're they're
suddenly coming to us with ideas, which is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
And where are you going to be in ten years?
Speaker 4 (34:47):
I'd like us to be one of the most prominent
options available to consumers in New Zealand outside of the
traditional grocery space.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
That's where I see us.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
I see us, you know, I see us working in
the flower space, greater greater impact in the pantry space,
produce who knows could be could eventually get into the
meat sector. I heard that those guys are struggling at
the moment as well. So there's I'm sure there's innovation there,
but you know, all round grocery model, but not necessarily
(35:19):
competing directly with traditionalists, but more with our wonky spin
on things.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
And what do you wish you'd known at the beginning
of the business.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
That success doesn't happen overnight. You know, it's a grind,
even with two of us in, I suppose the leadership
roles Katie and I both co founding of Wonky Box.
It's seventy eighty hour weeks most weeks, even three years in.
But like, you really got to love what you're doing,
and you've really got to be passionate about what it
(35:52):
is she doing behind the mission.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
That gets you through.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
But yeah, like be prepared to sit for a while
before you start to see anything prosperous come through.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
And that was Angers Sims from Wonky Box. I think
we're all a bit guilty of expecting our fresh food
to look a certain way, aren't we. If you want
to hear more stories about what it's really like to
be a boss, make sure you check out Bosses Unfiltered
on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. Get you
next time,
The big winds and the big losses, the hurdles, the pivots,
and the emotions, raw and honest, New Zealand's great business
minds like you've never heard them before. This is Bosses
Unfiltered with Kerry Woodham used talksed be.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
New Zealand produces enough food to feed forty million people.
Some of it we consume, some we export, but are staggering.
Thirty percent of the food we make or grower is wasted.
Fruit and veggies need to look a certain way to
make it onto supermarket shelves or they get tossed. Angus
Sims and his partner Katie Jackson started Wonky Box three
(00:40):
years ago, a subscription food box full of wonky fruit
and veg that's still a bit to your door. Their
business has grown way bigger and faster than they ever thought,
but it has not been smooth sailing. I'm Kerrie Woodhem.
This is Bosses Unfiltered, a podcast series about what it's
really like to run a business.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Hello Anger, Hi Kerry.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Did you imagine that an idea that came to you
when you were out picking fruit in the fields would
grow into a sustainable business.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
We had that intention from day one. I guess what
we didn't understand was necessarily the scale, and I guess
that was the hardest part to always pinpoint and probably
one of our biggest challenges that I'm sure we'll go
into was navigating that growth and the ultimately the subscriber
(01:31):
number and at the end of the day, trying to
accommodate however many boxes we were doing week to week
and with that growth. Yeah, Look, there were plenty of
surprises along their way, but I think we initially set
ourselves up to create something that was very much purpose,
purposeful and sustainable.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Okay, because your backstory of coming here, you were doing
you were over in England, came back to New Zealand
during the COVID years yep, and then you were picking
for it. It sounds like a kind of care free existence,
not like would be entrepreneur business people.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
No, absolutely, and it was it was Yeah, I mean,
we we you know, it was somewhat cliche. I suppose
at the end of the day. We did make the
break to come back to New Zealand at the time
when we'd been through a lockdown through in the UK,
the first one at least, and my family and where
I grew up or part of my childhood was in
was in New Zealand, and at some point Katie we
(02:26):
wanted to you know, I wanted to bring her down
here and show her the ropes down here and so on,
and we did. We wanted that freedom, We wanted to
escape the UK at that at that very point in time,
came down here and at that point, you know, New
Zealand was was still was, you know, wasn't lockdown, and
everyone was was doing their thing down here, and it
(02:46):
was a breath of fresh air to get back into
that routine again. And we did, you know, we got
we got the Campa van. We bought that with the
savings that we'd had in the UK having worked at
our jobs for many, many years, and started try traveling
around New Zealand, showing Katie all the wonderful things that
New Zealand has to offer. But like most travelers, at
(03:07):
some point, we probably overdid it and we were doing
it for far too long and we ran out of money,
and naturally when we were running out of money, we
were kind of on the final stretch. So we started
in Auckland. We traveled the North Island for a couple
of months, then we did the South Island where we
actually stayed put for about six odd months, and then
when we were coming back up around Nelson was when
(03:28):
we decided, do you know what, we need to get
back into some work. And we didn't know what we
wanted to do, so we were on the start of
summer at that point, and we thought, let's go do
let's go do some picking, let's go do some you know,
some harvest prep and things like that, things that we
never really thought we would get stuck into, but just
kind of like a somewhat care free job and still
(03:49):
live in that lifestyle in our van. And that's where
we were exposed to the issue, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Of the food wastage of food that wasn't perfect, fruit
that wasn't.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Perfect, totally yep, yep, no. And we it wasn't just us,
We had friends as well down there. At that point.
We'd made enough friends that were working at other orchards
and so on, and hearing stories from neighboring orchards and
neighboring growers as well who were facing that same problem.
We kind of thought, look, there's perfectly good food here
that could be consumed or or at least provided to
(04:22):
consumers in a better way.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, so did you ask the questions where does this
where does this fruit go?
Speaker 4 (04:28):
We were seeing it, Yeah, it was just getting dumped,
like you know, it was either not being picked in
the tree or it had been picked and then dumped.
What we've learned since then, obviously on our journey, is
that there's there's particular food waste moments in the supply chain,
and I suppose from experience working on some of these farms,
(04:48):
we were experiencing a lot of pre harvest waste. So
that's when growers can anticipate products that might not necessarily
meet specifications. So in that regard, they actually saved themselves
the time resource and just not pick it at all. Ultimately,
what happens to that fruit or that produce is that
it's left there and it will fall from the tree,
or it will rot and be used to mulch back
(05:09):
in to the ground when the tractor mows it and
so on. So that's one particular area, or the often
more frustrating area is when the growers actually harvested the product.
So he's gone about, he's you know, the team have
been through it, they've pulled, they've harvested from the from
the trees or from the plants, they've taken that to
the pack house to grade, and then from their post harvest,
(05:31):
if you like, they've realized that X amount of product
that they've harvested can't be sent to the local market
and things like that. So, yeah, it was there where
we got insights into into where in the supply chain
the problems were happening.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Most people, though, who were doing the pecking, go back
to the camper van and think, God, it's what a
bloody waste, and then you'd have a drink and that
would be the end of it. Why did you think
you could make money out of it?
Speaker 4 (05:57):
I guess I guess what we were we and don't
get me wrong, we were doing that. We were definitely
going back and the culture that those places provide was awesome,
without a doubt, and I suppose we were Ultimately I was.
I don't know whether it was me in particular. I
was just so interested in understanding the perspective from the grower,
(06:20):
So I used to, I suppose, go about a lot
more than most other workers and ask probably far too
many questions, nosing questions, that is, with the grower and
show genuine interest because I actually was interested. And I
guess it was the frustrations that we were seeing from
these these business owners at the end of the day
that really drove us to think, how can we or
(06:41):
can we create more value in this product for the
grower at the end of the day. And yeah, like
you know, we didn't really know at the time, but
when we left there and went to Wellington, we were
kind of pretty set to do some more homework.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
In it and start a business.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
And start a business.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, so right from the start you thought you could
turn it into business.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
We thought so, Like you know, we'd seen in New
Zealand in the local market, we'd seen the likes of
the Odd Bunch, which is Bullworth's's I suppose range. And again,
like you go into the supermarket, you have the option
to purchase that, but no one was necessarily doing that
in the home delivery space. And what we were thinking was, well,
how can we get the product to more Kibi households,
(07:23):
not just those that are walking into supermarkets every day,
So like, surely that there's a there's a niche there,
or there's something that we can be doing there.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I guess. COVID then worked in your favor with our
into and out of lockdowns because people were still relying
on subscription services, or at least had been introduced to
subscription services if they hadn't used them already for sure.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Yeah, no, And I think for you talk to any
business owner that had a online business that is around
that period, and yeah, there was definitely a huge spike
and some great momentum off the back of covid in
terms of interest and people purchasing products, especially in food
as well. So you know, I think, you know, food
being a basic need and people being forced to stay
(08:06):
at home, it was a case of right, we're going
to have to fundamentally do a lot of our our
food shopping online.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So were you you know, in your previous work in
the UK, had you or Katie been involved in website
creation or.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
No, not at all.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
My background was I'd worked for a couple of kind
of I suppose what they branded themselves as fintech companies.
So these were like I suppose, digital first lending platforms
that would primarily be working with small medium sized businesses
in the UK to offer funding outside of traditional funding
sources like banks and things like that. And then Katie
(08:44):
her background was a she was a psychiatric nurse at
the NHS. So you know, neither of us had any
real idea what we were getting into.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
And so once you had a basic idea for a
business plan, did you go to the banks first?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
No?
Speaker 4 (08:59):
So so what we did was we took the last
of our savings from the works and Nelson actually, which
was no more than five k at the end of
the day, and we just said, right, we've got five
k here. We're living with a really dear friend of
ours in Wellington who is now in our business and
works full time as well. And his background wasn't in accounting,
(09:21):
so he was an accountant and that was one area
that Katie and I were again not close to it all.
So we kind of just said to Connor at the time, look,
we've got this idea, we're living with you. Can we
pack the boxes here, can we do everything from your house?
And can you ultimately work work the nuts and bolts
in terms of zero and accounting and you know, together
(09:43):
all three of us will have a share in this
business because we couldn't pay him anything, right, like, we
had this five thousand dollars to basically set up a
Shopify store, probably go out and buy our first order
of produce and then that was it. You know, we
kind of hope by that point that we had orders
to actually fulfill the investment, the small investment that we
needed to put in. And so I think I think
(10:06):
what was great with having I suppose a friends and
family and in Wellington was that the you know, they
introduced us to their networks. So we got put in
touch with a local packaging distributor in Wellington who was
a family friend, and you know, they were very kind
(10:27):
to us in our early days. They set us up
and got us an account without having to verify any
credit references and things like that. And I suppose we
were using our friends and family at that point to
introduce us to people and lean on that to actually
get accounts set up in order to trade. But very
much like one of the things with having the online
(10:48):
business was we didn't necessarily need massive amounts of funding
because as soon as we were able to get a
product in front of people online and they were happy
to purchase it, we were never online businesses. What happens
is you paid upfront, essentially right money's in the bank
account before before you actually delivered the product.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
But people have to know about you before they can pay,
So how did you get some noise?
Speaker 4 (11:12):
So in the early days, and we did this for
about probably i would say a good year before we
even spent a dollar on marketing, was we felt that
we had a we were doing something very niche and timing,
again with covid was everything.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
People were at home.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
People's presence on social media were more because they were
just work, either working from home or not out doing activities,
so they were mucking around on Facebook, Instagram and the likes.
So we would we would be telling our story and
telling people what we were doing via community pages. When
we started the business and we were delivering those initial packages,
we were very much focused on ensuring that we were
(11:53):
covering ground enough ground in the smallest amount or the
lowest condensed area. So what we did was we are
going onto these community pages and telling our story, sharing
photos of the farmers, the produce, us ultimately doing doing
doing the work, and and that ultimately drove the initial
(12:13):
sales and the initial uptate that we had. And yeah,
we we didn't actually you know, we we probably as
we were expanding through Wellington and Wellington by the way,
is very hard city to start in any kind of
delivery logistics company because the infrastructure and everything else is
very challenging the Hills Rose Hills. Yeah, and try doing
(12:36):
that in in a in a in a small box
truck and borrowing people's friends vans and crashing crashing one
every other weekend.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
It was a nightmare.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
But ultimately that growth initially simply started from from utilizing Yeah,
those community pages.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Many many at home businesses started up through community Facebook pages.
Not many continued on past COVID. Yep, why did yours?
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I guess, I guess we We were at a point
in our business on the tail end of COVID to
make a call as to really if we wanted to
chase this down and become a nationwide business or whether
or not we were happy doing what we were doing
in Wellington. And and you know what we wanted we
(13:24):
want we wanted to make a bigger impact. At the
end of the day, we were getting you know, we
were getting reached out by growers up and down the country,
and not all of them were logistically capable of delivering
into Wellington. But what we identified was more problems happening
up and down the country and four different growers. So
if we could make an impact further north and service
(13:47):
customers further north, and we could do the same in
the South Island from from having these people reach out
and seeing this, then that was enough I suppose motivation
for Kadie and I to actually say, look, let's let's
let's put everything into this in terms of our I
guess effort and really go for it.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
And so that grower lead rather than consumer lead.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
It pivoted.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
It started off as consumer lid because in the early days,
I think it was very challenging for us to often
convince the growers that there was an appetite for this product.
For years, decades, these growers had been throwing a lot
of this product out or we're finding it very challenging
to find a home for this product, whereas now I
think we were really we were trying to push it
(14:35):
so hard in the eyes of the consumers who were
very adoptable. They were taking it on board, they were
loving the product. They were you know, we were asking
them every single week feedback on the product, what we
could be doing better, et cetera, et cetera. That I
think it actually shocked a lot of growers because a
lot of growers initially were pushing back on the idea.
And there are other reasons why growers wouldn't necessarily want
(14:57):
what they would call like a byproduct or an ugly
version of their product in the market as well, and
we can go into that in a bit more detail.
But initially I think it was to some a bit
of a shock to to sort of see the numbers
and see where it was tracking and where we were heading.
Eventually it pivoted where I think growers, you know, they
(15:18):
talked to other growers and and and ultimately the world
was getting out of the value that we were that
we were adding for some of these growers. And and
yet then we got ourselves into a very good position
where we had a lot of them reaching out to us.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Were the growers concerned that any kind of contract they
had with the supermarkets might be impacted by by giving
their won key route to you not really.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
I think the supermarkets, you know, they predominantly they'll want
to take the best looking product. You know, it's a
brick and mortar store you walk in, the first thing
people see when they walk into the supermarkets the produce.
It's where all the bright colors are it's where you
get emotional, it's where it's you know, it's the impression
that gives off. So it's within their interest to be
stocking and showcasing the best of the best of the bunch,
(16:05):
if you like. And I guess what we were doing
was we were saying to the grower, quite simply, of
the stuff that you're not sending there, we're a good
option for you, you know, the few or the limited
options that they have or had, we were hoping that
we could deliver better value. And so ultimately it wasn't
it wasn't a big concern for most.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
A few skinny pigs will be brassed off that they're
not getting the kind of fis that's.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Absolutely Yeah, the neighbors livestock that they would typically chuck
over the fence to them.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, perhaps absolutely.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
But that's a big big call to go from being
really comfortable and you know, having quite a nice little
set up in Wellington to expanding at nationwide. That is
a lot more headaches, yeah for you.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
And there were moments before we got there where we
were testing out, you know, testing testing out initially, because
we were doing everything at the start.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Well, and you also lose a bit of control, quality controls,
you know, the service you provide. You have to trust
that other people are going to do as good a
job as you. It's hard to let go of it
control when it's just been youw.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
It absolutely, it absolutely was.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
So that was a real pivotal moment I think for
us in Wellington was when we first tested the outsourcing
of our deliveries. And you know we now partner with
for all of our nationwide home home delivery boxes, we
partner with New Zealand Posts. But before we before we
moved into the New Zealm Post era we call it,
(17:39):
we started to contract our deliveries out to individuals with
Vance as well.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
I remember the first time.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
We did that though, we had a chat approach us
and say I'm seeing you guys out on the road
and you're doing these deliveries and we were. And at
that point in time it was us people that we'd
hired internally to do that, or vans we were borrowing.
I think at one point in time in Wellington we
were hiring i think eight City Hot vans on the
(18:11):
weekend and City Hot got really annoyed with us because
because you know, we were taking all their vans away
and and and yeah, well other people weren't able to
borrow them on a particular Saturday, which of course is
a huge day for when people need to go do
handy work or move this stuff. But but basically, the
first time we were approached by someone to do it,
(18:33):
you know, we we were thinking, well, look, if we
do this, then how much how much? How much work
is that going to take off our hands? And Kady
and I were hamming an airing it for a couple
of weeks and we just decided to go for it.
And I remember coming home in the afternoon on that Saturday.
I believe it was quite nervous to think that the
(18:53):
boxes were out getting delivered and it was a really
I remember it was a really terrible.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Day as well.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
It was it was rain, it was pouring, and I
was thinking, wow, this is insane. We're inside having a
cup of tea at one o'clock on a Saturday afternoon,
not out there hustling delivering boxes. And then we had
a phone call from the driver who was in Platoni
at the time, and he phoned us to say that nah,
(19:20):
this wasn't cut out for him. He wasn't going to
do it, so then we had to chuck on our
ranger hits, jump back in after just getting that little
bit of hope, and then go and meet him unload
his van full of boxes into our cars at the
time because we hadn't pre prepared to hire other vans.
Deal with a very awkward situation at the time, but
then ultimately go and finish off the runs, right. But
(19:42):
that was an interesting time because you know, we were
sat there at that point having gotten home that evening
and going well, we tried it. It doesn't work. But
I think Katie's very good because she turned to me
and said, look, it doesn't have to work the first
time at the end of the day, and maybe I
was a bit stuck with that thought at the time,
but she's absolutely right, Like it didn't work that first time,
(20:03):
but we rolled the dice.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
We did it again. We found someone else and it
did work.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
The honest story of being in business, Talking the winds
and the Losses Bosses Unfiltered with Kerry Woodhem on iHeartRadio
powered My News talksb Wins, Losses and the real stories
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Speaker 2 (20:29):
When it comes to how good looking the fruit and
the veggies are, and you talked about the gross being
a bit concerned that they didn't want their product to
be associated with something less than perfect, and the supermarkets
like having perfect things at the front. Do you think
it's because we've lost our connection with food that we
don't have the fruit trees in the backyard anymore, so
(20:49):
you don't know that you can nibble round a bruise
or a wormb you know, which we used to do
when you picked fruits off your grandparents' trees.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Totally, Like I think, I think a big part of
it is the expectations that consumers have set themselves, you know,
like we want products that are out of season all
year round, because you know, we expect that. So supermarkets,
you know, in their defense, they're doing their absolute best
just to just to try and meet the once and
(21:17):
the desires of consumers at the end of the day.
And I guess what Wonky Box is doing is is
slightly different. We're encouraging the seasonality aspect of things. We're
encouraging that the produce that we're sourcing is still extremely
good to eat, it's extremely fresh, it's straight from the grower,
so there are no middlemen, straight to the consumer. And
(21:39):
if it's got scars, if it's got an odd shape,
it's slightly too small, it's slightly too big. That's just
part of the fun at the end of the day, right,
And it helps because it means that the grower, the
growers getting a return, our customers should be satisfied. And ultimately,
if you know, if we want to try and save
(22:01):
money as as as a society, as a population, then
a great way to do that is eating within the seasons,
you know. And I think I think that it all
leads down to that conversation that's constantly being had about
the supermarkets and you know, pricing and so on and
so forth. But like a lot of it stems from
us at the end of the day, it does.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
And so instead of opening the reciee book and saying, right,
I'm going to make that for dinner, you open the
walky box and you go.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Right, what can can I make?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Correct, just part of the fun.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
And you know, if there's if there's unusual products in there,
which there are from time to time.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Carl Rabi is a really good few people.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Like you know, we have at our
customer's availability online recipes.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
You know, we'll push them.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
We're not necessarily saying you need to use these recipes,
but if you're stuck for inspiration, then they're there and
they're available.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah. I remember that we used to have a local
butcher we don't now in my neighborhood and he was
asked by a couple of Yummy Mummies if he could
please take down the carcasses because it frightened the littles
when they came in to get the sausages. And it's like,
you have to know where your food comes from.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Total.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I really think there's an obligation on the consumer to
know it's not always going to be perfect, it's not
always going to be there. You have to if there's
been a bad season, you just have to get with
what's available.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
I think the distance between or the connection between where
our food comes from and what we know is becoming greater, and.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
It confuses us.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Then when we go about and we're having to pay
this price for this product or this price for that product,
we just you know, we default assume that whoever's selling
it is ripping us off. But at the end of
the day, there's so much more deeper into the supply chain,
there's so much more of a reason as to why
it is that And I think that right now, consumers,
you know, those kind of stories are far less told
(23:50):
right when you're looking at what when you look at
the media and you're hearing about some of the stories
about why we're paying X amount for products at the
supermarket as well, I think it's quite easy for the
media to point their finger at the supermarkets, whereas you know,
someone like myself who's been in the trenches now for
three years and ideal and speak with growers every single day,
I fundamentally can understand why the products are priced where
(24:14):
they're at. And I think Wonky Box, you know, we're
trying to tell that story more so.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
You started with five K. Yeah, where are you at
now three years.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
On in terms of savings or in terms of.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
In terms of the company. So Wonkey Box would have
had five K. That would have been its capital.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Yeah, ultimately, and now you know we're we're a bigger business.
We've got you know, we've got I think full time
in the company we've got five five individuals, each playing
their own significant part plus more. You know, we were
always stretching ourselves to do more. Ultimately, before we decide
to bring in someone someone new, we want to we
(24:54):
want to make sure that higher or that new hire
is going to be worthwhile doing.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Where are we now? We're also so.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
We're picking packing in two islands. So we've got a
site in the South Island, a site in the North Island.
Any given time on a Wednesday and a Thursday, which
are our production days, we've got about fifty staff up
and down the country contributing to the mission and packing boxes.
And you know, you go beyond that, you look at
(25:21):
your contractors and how many couriers are out delivering the boxes.
You know that it stretches even further. So, yeah, we're
much bigger business than where we were three years ago,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Are you a success yet?
Speaker 3 (25:37):
That's I guess, Yeah, what does success look like?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
It's different for everybody, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (25:44):
It is?
Speaker 4 (25:44):
It is And right now I think Katie and I
we you know, we're dabbling. We dabbling our toes and
many new things. The wonky pantry, We've got wonky flowers.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Because flowers are supposed to be good looking.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Correct, Yes, so this is interesting, it's a whole and
predominantly what we find in New Zealand is a lot
of the reason why they tailor into the wonky why
they're in that wonky brand is not just necessarily the appearance.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
It could be surplus.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
For example, So this country we have very few flower growers,
and of the ones that we have, they often take
a gamble because they've got Valentine's date, they've got Mother's date,
they've got Christmas, they've got these periods of the year
where they're selling five times as much product than they
would every other week of the year. But during those
(26:34):
kind of not so peak periods of the year, they're
still trying to actually make sure they have enough to
supply supermarkets and florists and so on and so forth.
And with the trim whilst we've seen a shift and
seen less and less growers producing flowers in the country,
those ones that are producing flowers need to make sure
they're growing enough to basically service the country. So we
(26:54):
were called down from one of our growers that supplies
as veggies and the White Kettow, very long standing partnership
we have with these guys. They also happened to be
the largest flower grower in the country, and so they
actually invited us down there on I think the week
after Valentine's Day and they said, look, we've got someone
to show you, and this is a peak for us,
(27:16):
but like we have this problem week to week when
we're managing orders and so on and so forth. And
we went down there and we didn't really know what
they were talking about. They were keeping it very hush hush.
And we got there and we got invited to the farm,
not the farm gate where we typically go to see
the veggies, but to their flower side of it, their
their flower orchard, the tunnels over that area, which is
(27:36):
just a k or two down the road.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
And we went in and.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
You know, we saw this huge pile of flowers and
what looked like very normal looking regular flowers that were
just dumped outside the pack site. And we said, well,
what's going on here, and they said, well, this is
this is the problem. Like a lot of this, he said,
about seventy percent of it will be surplus that we
just have harvested, and we can't do anything with twenty
(28:04):
to thirty percent the stems might be too short, a
leaf might be broken on the on the actual stem
that will remove anyway, but it still doesn't fit within
the spec that some of the local markets asked for,
and so they said, could we be doing something with this?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
So that was GROO. That's interesting.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Yeah, grower lead is first and foremost the mission, right
Do you and Kadie like being bosses?
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (28:31):
And no.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
I think we like doing things and I think being
a leader can be extremely challenging but an absolute must. Right, Like,
we've got this very lean structure to our business, and
we've got really really, really good, amazing staff within the
(28:55):
company who are all driven by the mission at the
end of the day, and yeah, we've we've got to
manage We've got to manage them. We've got our best
friend who's the accountant, and that's you know, again, fun
interesting dynamic that one. But I think respectively, we we're
doing that as well as doing everything else within the business.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
So and finding the right person must be so difficult
because when it's that smaller team that interdependent and interconnected,
the wrong person could be a disaster.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
For sure, for sure.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
I think, I think and you know, we've got we've
had mentors who are now advisors slash you know, directors
within the business now who have had great experience that
they've brought to to our board and at the end
of the day, you know, governance and everything else. So
these guys have been there to really help guide us
in how we make these decisions around hiring and fundamentally,
(29:50):
I think the number one rule for Katie and I
when we're making a key hire is we know where
in the business someone needs to be, we know what
they need to do, and ultimately, can we trust that
they're going to do and even better job than what
we're going to be able to do. And that's that's
been our mantra, right like is actually finding people better
than ours for certain pockets within the business and trusting
(30:11):
them at the end of the day. Like you know,
we're small business at the end of the day, and
I think for us, it's you have to have that
trust component, right because we're not going to be there
to micromanagement the whole time. We're going to be out
there trying to grow the business and do more.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
And it is a business that you started together, you
work together, you still have to have a relationship together
how do you manage the.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Two I we get We get asked that question quite often,
and surprisingly I think that well, we always say we
always we always say to each other at the end
of the day, thank goodness, we're doing this together. Like
all of the hard times that come with owning a business,
(30:54):
I feel for the people that are out there hustling
by themselves in and I suppose a fan and in
the founder seat and so on. At least with us
being I suppose in a relationship at the same time,
we can call on each other whenever we need, We
can express how we're feeling, just quite comfortably and honestly
(31:15):
and openly.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Look, it works, it works really well for us. At
the end of the day. Yeah, it hasn't been a problem.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Do you have a figure in mind as to win,
You'll say, we've made it.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
For us. It's all just purely about.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Doing more with more suppliers, the grower ladmission and being
able to do that, I suppose at a greater level,
not just in the farming space, the horticultural space, but
potentially into the pantry and now obviously the floric culture
and things like that. For us, we just there's no
real end goal just yet we're just hustling day to day,
(31:54):
week to week at the moment, trying to do more,
trying to do better.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Can businesses sustain themselves elves through, especially through those really
difficult first years if money is the only driving motivator
or do you have to have something bigger behind what
you're doing?
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Look, I think I think the purpose the purpose first
mindset has gotten us through so many challenges at the
end of the day and throw through so much more
than I imagine a lot of people could cope with.
And look, you've always got to be focused on your numbers.
You've always got to be every decision that you're making,
(32:34):
you need to sense check that with your profit and
loss forecasts and so on that we actually spend time
on weekly. And sometimes you're making decisions that you want
to do, but you can't do, you know, because because
it doesn't make sense from the numbers perspective. And during
those periods it can be quite daunting because then you
don't know how you're going to get through and get
(32:55):
to the next stage. But somehow, one way or another,
it always works out.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Have you paid yourself yet?
Speaker 3 (33:01):
You and yeady yea, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, we
pay ourselves.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, yeah, good, All right, We've got some quick fire
questions for you. What is your favorite fruit.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
And veg My favorite fruit and vege is the very
expensive passion fruit.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
SAME's so good.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
They're even they're even more expensive this season and I'm
still I'm still trying to find out why, but yeah,
can't beat it.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
What do you do when things get tough?
Speaker 4 (33:28):
Katy and I have each other at the end of
the day, and I think that gets us through a lot.
We catch up with our team, everyone in our team
every single week, so, like you know, we we want
to we want to make sure that we're there for
them first and foremost. And ultimately there are highs, there
are lows. But I suppose with the lows, what we
(33:50):
do is we just we always know that we can
get We're always going to get through. Like I said,
we've got an outstanding team. Every single one of them
is a hustler and and yeah, well we get through.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Where do you get the best ideas from other people
from brainstorming from aha moments when you because obviously with
the grower, that with the flowers that came.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
From that, so two places, really our customers or our suppliers.
You know, we're so engaged with our suppliers that a
lot of the inspiration, the innovation comes from them. We're
a supply driven business at the end of the day,
and everything we're doing is for the greater good for
the suppliers, whether that be the flower supplies, whether that
be pantry supplies, whether that be the growers. So a
(34:30):
lot of a lot of ideas now come from these guys,
now that we've proven that we're a viable and reliable
source for these for these producers, you know, they're they're
suddenly coming to us with ideas, which is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
And where are you going to be in ten years?
Speaker 4 (34:47):
I'd like us to be one of the most prominent
options available to consumers in New Zealand outside of the
traditional grocery space.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
That's where I see us.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
I see us, you know, I see us working in
the flower space, greater greater impact in the pantry space,
produce who knows could be could eventually get into the
meat sector. I heard that those guys are struggling at
the moment as well. So there's I'm sure there's innovation there,
but you know, all round grocery model, but not necessarily
(35:19):
competing directly with traditionalists, but more with our wonky spin
on things.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
And what do you wish you'd known at the beginning
of the business.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
That success doesn't happen overnight. You know, it's a grind,
even with two of us in, I suppose the leadership
roles Katie and I both co founding of Wonky Box.
It's seventy eighty hour weeks most weeks, even three years in.
But like, you really got to love what you're doing,
and you've really got to be passionate about what it
(35:52):
is she doing behind the mission.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
That gets you through.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
But yeah, like be prepared to sit for a while
before you start to see anything prosperous come through.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
And that was Angers Sims from Wonky Box. I think
we're all a bit guilty of expecting our fresh food
to look a certain way, aren't we. If you want
to hear more stories about what it's really like to
be a boss, make sure you check out Bosses Unfiltered
on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. Get you
next time,
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