Finalists announced for the BNZ Bay of Plenty ExportNZ Award

Finalists announced for the BNZ Bay of Plenty ExportNZ Awards 2014

22 May 2014

The finalists for the BNZ Bay of Plenty ExportNZ Awards for 2014 have been decided, and it is clear from the high calibre of companies that there is serious competition in every category.

The judges, led by head judge Kelvin Trask have been impressed by the variety of businesses who entered. From milk, vanilla, roofing, luxury fibre to solar energy – there are no two companies in the same sector.

The theme for this year’s awards is ‘Country Music’ and the MC Te Radar a crowd favourite, which bodes well for a fun night. ExportNZ made a professional music video with the help of their sponsors as ‘talent’ to set the scene. To see this and for all awards information, go to www.bopexportnzawards.co.nz.

The ceremony will be held at ASB Baypark on Friday the 27th of June. ExportNZ Executive Officer Angela Wallace said “as usual tickets to the awards sold out months ago, with almost 500 local business people keen to be a part of this stellar event, celebrating export success in the Bay of Plenty”.

Finalists: United Travel Business Emerging Exporter of the Year
• Heilala Vanilla
• Miraka
• Global Roofing

Finalists: Page Macrae Engineering Innovation in Export Award
• Discovery Marine
• Balex Marine
• Douglas Creek

Finalists: Bay of Plenty Tertiary Partnership Export Achievement Award
• Eric Oversluizen, Oasis Engineering
• Heather Logie, MSM Sales Management Specialists
• Colin Baskin, Comvita

Zespri International Service to Export Award
No finalist to announce just one very surprised and deserving winner on the night.

Finalists: Sharp Tudhope Lawyers Exporter of the Year Award
• Avocado Oil NZ
• Surtees Boats
• PowerSmart

More information about each finalist:

Finalists: United Travel Business Emerging Exporter of the Year Award
• Heilala Vanilla
• Miraka
• Global Roofing Solutions

The United Travel Business Emerging Exporter of the Year award celebrates companies, from within the Bay of Plenty, which have made the most remarkable leap forward in start-up exporting. The award is not sector specific and the entrants will have been exporting for less than five consecutive years.

Each export company will be judged on the basis of its achievement relative to its own product or service sector. The winner of this award will demonstrate extraordinary attributes in the following:
• Endeavour and commitment to start exporting
• Investment, personally and professionally by principals involved
• Export performance - including earnings, growth and profit
• Leadership and direction
• Marketing strategy
• Proactive market penetration and export market development

Heilala Vanilla | www.heilalavanilla.co.nz
Heilala Vanilla started as an aid project in 2002 following a cyclone in Vava'u Tonga when NZ dairy farmer, John Ross, mined his horticultural know-how and appreciation of the Tongan way to put to use a block of dormant land in the village of Utungake, situated in the Vava'u Islands, Kingdom of Tonga. It took a further three years to develop the vanilla plantation which saw the aid project start to yield and export Vanilla beans back to Tauranga, New Zealand where a range of the most exquisite, 100% pure vanilla products for specialty retail, chefs and gourmet food manufacturers were developed.

Global Roofing | www.globalroofing.co.nz
Global Roofing provide their export customers with a full turnkey metal tile roofing solution. Their offer is unique because they create a new business opportunity for their customers rather than the competitor model of supplying only machinery with some follow-on service. This business model makes Global Roofing a clear market leader in the global metal roofing industry. Their ability to provide their customers with a full range of services to take them from concept to commercialisation is innovative and ground breaking within the traditional metal roofing industry.

Miraka | www.miraka.co.nz
Miraka manufacture and sell whole milk powder, the majority of which is exported. Within just three years, Miraka has gone from an unknown start up in the Dairy Industry to a successful and respected company with export revenues in excess of $200 million and nearly 70 new jobs.

They have completed the construction of a UHT Milk Plant adjacent to their existing whole milk powder plant and are expecting to commence production shortly. All initial production will be exported to China.

Miraka is a company which lives by its values of tikanga, kaitiakitanga, integrity, excellence and innovation.

Finalists: Page Macrae Engineering Innovation in Export Award
• Discovery Marine
• Balex Marine
• Douglas Creek

The Page Macrae Engineering Innovation in Export award is a special award to recognise a Bay of Plenty business displaying outstanding innovation in exporting.

Innovation is not just inventing. It can include anything genuinely innovative be it product or service, leadership, positioning or branding, marketing, sales channels, technology, creative pricing strategy or similar that is distinctly different and differentiates their business.

Discovery Marine Ltd | www.dmlsurveys.co.nz
Discovery Marine provide Hydrographic Survey Services for navigational charting, construction, environmental monitoring, seabed inspection, salvage support, tidal studies and other associated services. They are specialists in combining data sets from both land and hydrographic surveys.

Balex Marine | www.balexmarine.com
The Balex® Marine Automatic Boat Loader automates the launch and retrieval of a trailer boat so you don’t even have to get your feet wet! No more clambering down the slippery boat ramp to attach the winch. No more cranking on the manual winch or slow unreliable electric winching.

The Balex Automatic Boat Loader (ABL) creates a new product type in the marine sector and a compelling new offer for manufacturers, retailers and consumers. The ABL allows a person to load and unload their boat in a controlled way making the process a cinch.

Douglas Creek | www.cervelt.com
Douglas Creek Ltd (DCL) is the marketing and distribution arm of its parent company Cashmere Processors Ltd, which processes natural textile fibres for the fashion industry. In 2001, it developed a new natural fibre from the New Zealand Red Deer, Cervelt(TM) which it has introduced to the European textile and apparel industry.

Cervelt is one of the two finest commercial natural textile fibres in the market today. It is the first new commercial down fiber presented to the market in over 200 years.

Yarn spun from Cervelt is used by companies such as Hermes, Giorgio Armani and Borsalino. In 2012, the London shoe maker Harrys of London, released an exclusive line of men's socks made of 100% Cervelt which were marketed as "The Most Exclusive Sock in The World" and sold for NZ$1750 a pair.

Finalists: Bay of Plenty Tertiary Partnership Export Achievement Award
• Eric Oversluizen, Oasis Engineering
• Heather Logie, MSM Sales Management Consultants
• Colin Baskin, Comvita

The Bay of Plenty Tertiary Partnership Export Achievement award provides an exporter the opportunity to recognise a material contribution to their export success by a particular individual within their company. These nominees are often the unsung heroes of their business.

A nominee may come from any Bay of Plenty based export or related services company and hold any position within that company.

The information provided by the Nominator is designed to provide judges with insight into the individual Export Achiever Nominee’s contribution to export processes, products or technologies, team dynamics and ultimately result in export growth and profitability.

Entry into this award is through nomination only.

Eric Oversluizen, Production Manager, Oasis Engineering | www.oasisngv.com
Oasis Engineering Ltd is a designer and manufacturer of high pressure gas control equipment focused on the natural gas for vehicles market. (NGV). Oasis produces the ULTRA FAST FILL™ series of valves and coupling which lead the world in efficient CNG vehicle filling. Oasis products are found in all countries using CNG (28 in all). The Oasis brand is one of the most highly valued in the NGV industry.

Eric started on the floor in 1988, and as Production Manager Eric truly does know the business from the ground up. It is Eric’s responsibility to organize the flow of work and materials inventory in order to keep the excellent record Oasis has at scheduling high quality, innovative products to be delivered on time. Eric is involved in many Kaizen meetings and chairs the Performance and Recognition Group - which is an in-house incentive to acknowledge ideas from team members. His aim is to continually fine-tune the production base of Oasis by developing opportunities for improvement.

Heather Logie – Facilitator, MSM Sales Management Consultants | www.msmsalesmanagement.com
MSM specialise in increasing a business’s profitability through sales in local and export markets. From their offices in New Zealand and United Kingdom their business is focused on building client capability to turn products, services and ideas into profitable sales. Their approach enables clients to go to market faster with reduced risk in a more sustainable fashion that supports long term revenue growth.

Heather's primary role is supporting clients through the MSM Blueprint process. MSM's framework is a modular approach to creating export sales capability through market research and validation; sales strategy and coaching and mentoring in the execution stage.

Heather has proven herself to be a key part of MSM client's projects by helping determine key export opportunities, delivering detailed sales strategies and providing an outstanding level of support to exporters as they proceed to action the strategies.

Colin Baskin – GM Supply Chain, Comvita | www.comvita.co.nz
Comvita is an international health and beauty company committed to the development of innovative products, backed by credible scientific research. They are the global leader in Manuka (leptospermum) honey and fresh-picked Olive Leaf Extract, which are at the core of the Comvita product range. They have more than 35,000 beehives under contract and direct control with more than 5000 producing specialist medical-grade Manuka honey.

Colin joined Comvita in 16 July 2007 as Commercial Manager Supply. In this role Colin became responsible for adding security to supply of bee products including contracts and acquisitions.

Colin’s current role in Comvita is GM Supply Chain responsible for all production - planning, logistics, including 3PL in market providers, all apiary operations, OPA Australia and Kiwi Extracts. Comvita Global supply chain team consists of 150 persons in total.

Zespri International Service to Export Award

No finalists just one very surprised and deserving winner on the night.

The Zespri International Service to the Export Community award recognises and honours an individual, who may or may not be directly involved with exporting, but in the view of the judges has made a significant contribution to exporting success in the Bay of Plenty.

This individual will have:
• made an outstanding contribution to exporting success within the Bay of Plenty
• assisted or is assisting in developing international recognition for the Bay of Plenty
• provided mentoring or assistance to exporters

Entry into this award is through nomination only and is decided by past winners of the award.

Past winners: Gwenda Merriman, Kay Rogers, Catherine Simmons, Graeme Boyd, Lionel Crawley, Bob Sievwright, Alan Bougen, Murray Davies, Jon Mayson, Murray Hill and Rob Jeffrey.

Finalists: Sharp Tudhope Lawyers Exporter of the Year Award
• Avocado Oil NZ
• Surtees Boats
• PowerSmart

The Sharp Tudhope Exporter of the Year Award is the big award of the evening, and is for companies who have achieved extraordinary and sustainable export growth. The business will have been engaged in generating significant export earnings for that business and New Zealand for more than five consecutive years.

The winner of this award will demonstrate sustained and outstanding performance and results in terms of:
• Export earnings, growth and profit
• Leadership and direction
• Excellence in marketing
• Export strategy and business planning
• Commitment to quality management
• Governance

Avocado Oil NZ | www.avocado-oil.co.nz
Avocado Oil NZ are manufacturers and marketers of premium quality cold pressed extra virgin avocado oil and associated products.

They have combined the science of processing technology with the art of craftsmanship, to perfect one of the world’s premium culinary oils.

The Company was established by a group of local avocado growers, who pioneered the commercial production of avocado oil and 14 years on it still remains a 100% locally owned and operated business.

They have achieve worldwide success with the uniquely green and highly nutritious oil, and the company has entered a new phase of the business and aims to produce a world first 100% pure Avocado Powder.

PowerSmart | www.PowerSmartsolar.co.nz
PowerSmart is a focused solar power integrator with over 15 years of design, installation, commissioning, and project management experience in the global photovoltaic (PV) industry. Their core business is the design and installation of high quality solar power systems across New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific, and Costa Rica. They are New Zealand’s largest and premier specialist solar power system integrator and have a wide breadth of experience across the full range of solar power applications.

Surtees Boats | www.surtees.co.nz
Surtees Boats design and build aluminum trailer boats for fishing and recreational use. The boats are designed to use the same parts on the different models so customers can get the boat they want but the parts inventory is less which helps speed up build time per boat.

Their reputation is worldwide, with 50% of their boats exported. Surtees Boats are known for their excellent sea handling capabilities, as being designed for fishing, for their good looks and being tough.

Surtees Boats won the Emerging Exporter of the Year Award last year, and are looking to take out the big award this year.

ENDS

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