62 ANNUAL DIRECTORY 2017 BIRKENHEAD BREWING COMPANY The Birkenhead Brewing Company is one of New Zealand’s fastest growing craft beer companies based out of Auckland. A collection of four award-winning beer styles and a tasting studio on Auckland’s North Shore form the company’s foundation. Specialising in making quality beer that people will buy and recommend to others, Birkenhead Brewery’s first beer, Kauri Double IPA, got much early acclaim and won two medals on its first batch. The company also exports to Australia, the Pacific and Asia. The market in China, which has an insatiable appetite for quality New Zealand craft beer, is represented by Birkenhead Brewery’s 888ml Provider bottle that is already being revered by many there. www.bbc.kiwi RUSH MUNRO With a story beginning in 1926 when Englishman Frederick Charles Rush Munro set up his Hastings icecream shop with his wife Catherine, Rush Munro is now New Zealand’s oldest icecream maker, having recently celebrated its 90th birthday, and continues to delight Kiwi consumers with its range of iconic flavours. Ninety years after the first batch of 100% natural premium icecream was produced, the company continues to stick to its heritage and maintain its values. The good old-fashioned flavours continue to be batch-churned in machines which are modern versions of those used in the 1940s, and the icecream contains no artificial colours, preservatives, additives or flavours. The fruit icecreams contain up to 21% real fruit – in fact the company is remarkably fussy when it comes to picking out sun-ripened fruit to trap that ‘just picked’ flavour. Only the finest ingredients – farm fresh cream, whole milk, pure cane sugar, egg yolk, gelatin and natural flavour from fresh fruit, sourced locally – are used to this day. The company has always been privately owned, with two owners John Caulton and Alastair McSporran before local grower and exporter John Bostock bought it in 2001. For the past decade, Bostock has successfully spread Rush Munro’s icecream throughout the country, and it is now available in supermarkets, cafes, restaurants and icecream parlours. www.rushmunro.co.nz FREEDOM FARMS Ten years ago Freedom Farms was founded not by farmers or even people from the food industry, but a handful of everyday consumers who wanted only to buy products they could trace back to farms that were audited against strict animal welfare standards. Today, the company is part of a fast-growing worldwide movement often called ‘ethical consumerism’, where people are saying “When I buy something, I can make a difference. I want to know that the company I support shares the same values that I do.” One of the big advantages of high-welfare farming is that it also translates into improved quality and taste…as far as Freedom Farms is concerned, happy animals mean happy eating. A decade on, Freedom Farms’ range now includes fresh pork cuts, bacon, ham and sausages, fresh eggs and fresh chicken - all farmed the ‘freedom way’ on independently audited New Zealand farms. www.freedomfarms.co.nz BEST OF THE BEST “Not afraid to step out of the ordinary” - Nominator “An impressive philosophy” - Nominator
FT-Annual2017
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