Our People

A new way of treating a former by-product catch is tickling taste buds — and winning at the Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards of 2020.

The lockdown time has meant hardly any adjustment for New Zealand's most self-sufficient family.

A family-run business producing premium poultry is the Supreme Champion in the 2020 Outstanding New Zealand Food Producer Awards.

A creative woman on a beautiful farm branched out beyond her flower-free, well-hedged garden to plant herself a business. It’s growing divinely.

She was once a super-sporty, outdoors girl but Rachel Guisolan broke her back in a horse-riding accident. Her new life, she says, has a silver lining.

Shannon Wright has turned a passion for nutrient-rich food into a growing business of goodness.

The real magic happens at snail’s pace in this devoted foodie’s kitchen and garden.

Artist Shane Hansen emerged from a period of mental illness, finding peace — and a new career — with creativity.

Ethics Run Deep

The world has certainly changed since Brigit Blair launched her skincare business 25 years ago and had to have someone co-sign for her first business credit card, such was the rarity of a female entrepreneur. Linden Leaves was ahead of its time in other ways too.

Tāme Iti has always used creativity to frame his social and political rhetoric. Now in his 60s, paint propels his inimitable style of agitation.

Uplifting A Nation Of Women

When one considers charity, provision of money, food and basic clothing items typically comes to mind. Who would have known that the key to empowerment may actually be contained within certain hidden undergarments: bras. Pauline Watson does. In November 2019, the coordinator of New Zealand’s Uplift Project, who has now come to be known as ‘The Bra Lady’, travelled to Fiji to deliver suitcases of these precious items. I followed her to capture the journey and effect of New Zealand’s benevolence.

When a Martinborough artist and winemaker couldn’t find quirky New Zealand-produced wallpaper for their new home, they decided to take DIY to the next level.

Annie and Shaun Wilson stress the importance of having multiple income streams.

Tourists and trampers help a hardworking Banks Peninsula family in their four-decade struggle to rescue penguins, save the native forest and secure their livelihood.

Meet a couple who love bacon so much, they left Christchurch to go pig farming.

Several Ashburton cows were all that stood between professor Haxby Abbott and his dream of a (pre-1967) Kombi.

A Bay of Plenty family is turning pests into profitable products.

A hobby that grew from a childhood love of seashells has spiraled into something far greater than a pocketful of limpets, pipis and cockles.

A charcutier returns to the forgotten days of butchery – plucking free-range livestock from the paddock and using every last jowl, shoulder and trotter.

Artist Emma Bass finds life-affirming beauty in many places, sometimes even in disorder and decay.

Andrew Child’s first award-winning beer was named after a Wellington mayor. Then came Dump The Trump IPA.

When red-hot chilli fans Steve and Anne Corkran got burned by big business marketplaces, they decided to go direct to their customers and turned their block into a thriving market garden.

Obsessed with a fruit many New Zealanders think of as their own, an award-winning journalist traveled the world to search for its roots.

The owners of Rapaura Springs Wines keep such a low profile that when a local newspaper wrote about their sponsorship of Garden Marlborough, people said: ‘We didn’t know you owned that business, we thought you just worked there.

What was once a silly dream has been whipped into a business churning out refreshing blues.

An environmental society establishes roots — and a community spirit — along a windswept Wellington estuary.

A modern holiday home in Taupō’s Three Mile Bay is a retreat for this couple, who spend much of their time giving back to others.

When Natalie Meldrum found herself living on the other side of the world, isolated from friends and family, she channeled her energy and creativity into a bold new venture.

It’s never too late to change careers. This self-taught costume designer is now trying her hand at cooking after decades in the dance industry.

Reprising his role as a sexy, 188-year-old blood-feeding, actor Jonny Brugh is about to brave the stage in Bread & Circus: The World Buskers Festival in Christchurch.

A Bay of Plenty town joins a global movement, repairing, fixing and mending to reduce waste and forge connections.

An adventurous farming family learns to cultivate tourists and mussels in a secluded Marlborough Sounds property.

Every seed has a story, and some are sown with love.

Dinky, red and full of green cred, a wheezing Citroën 2CV van gets a zippy new electric life.