Top foodies promote vegan burger trailer

Top foodies promote vegan burger trailer

A vegan burger van hitting the streets of Auckland and beyond is set to have some of the country’s most successful niche food marketers as back seat drivers.

Wise Boys Burgers from the North Shore has been named as one of four winners of the Sustainable Business Network’s Good Food Boost competition. Led by 27-year-old Tim Burrows, the team built the trailer from recycled and scrap materials. They sell entirely plant-based burgers made from local ingredients. The business hopes to expand, possibly into a bricks and mortar restaurant or towards selling its products in supermarkets.

As part of the competition prize Wise Boys Burgers and the other three winners will all receive eight weeks’ mentoring from communications guru Martin Yeoman of Assignment, Karen Staples owner and founder of Auckland-based food company Pure Delish, Kim Evans founder of premium food stores Little & Friday, and Mike Murphy managing director of Kokako Organic coffee.

The teams will also take their wares to the FoodBowl food innovation facility in Mangere, where they can test out new production and packaging ideas.

Tim said: “I initially wanted to start a restaurant that was zero waste. This felt like a good way of starting out. We entered the competition because we like the way it aligns with our values. There’s a lot of scary big stuff like working with supermarkets that we don’t really know about yet, that we really want to learn to do.”

The van has an unauthorised caricature of Prince Charles as its logo, after the team took the Prince’s arguments against the throwaway society as inspiration to go into business.

The other winners are:

• House of Dumplings: handmade traditional dumplings from quality ingredients.

• Real Eating Awesome Living: a fast-growing business selling real vegetable wraps, a tasty gluten, grain and wheat-free bread alternative.

• Farm Gate Produce: ‘from gate to plate’ free range pork cuts, sausages, salami and Chorizo from Northland.

The competition is sponsored by Auckland Tourism Events and Economic Development (ATEED).

It was judged by

• Angus Brown, Business Development Manager at New Zealand Food Innovation Network;

• Connie Clarkson, Panuku Development Auckland;

• Wendy Voegelin, Auckland Tourism Events and Economic Development;

• Emily Dowding-Smith, Sustainable Business Network.

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