Tongan Vanilla 10 MAY 2016 A tragic cyclone in the Pacific has proven to be an unlikely catalyst for a New Zealand business exporting vanilla to the world. Heilala Vanilla is a fast-growing company headquartered in Tauranga that produces a range of products from Tongan vanilla, which is of high quality due to the excellent climate in the Pacific island nation. Company founder Jennifer Boggiss says the business came about after her father John Ross visited Tonga as part of the relief effort following the devastating Cyclone Waka in 2001. “We were working with a small village and we planted some vanilla and ended up with about 45kg, and thought ‘what do we do with this?’ So we decided to make a business out of it,” she says. “My father is a dairy farmer so we knew straight away that we didn’t want to get stuck in the whole commodities business…we wanted to be a brand.” While Heilala Vanilla’s raw product is sourced from Tonga, the processing and packaging operations are based in New Zealand, meaning the business boosts the economies of both countries. “People ask why we don’t base it in Tonga but it’s just too hard from a shipping, freighting, packaging and food technology perspective,” Boggiss TAKES WORLD BY STORM
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