Business Is Boring

Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Scottie Chapman from Spring Sheep Milk Co.

New Zealand is famous all around the world for sheep, and for milk. But what it hasn’t been so well known for is sheep milk, but this week on the podcast we’re meeting a man out to change that.

That’s right, sheep milk. It’s an alternative milk on the rise across SE Asia. It’s easier to digest than cow’s milk and has a way lower environmental impact than dairy. And although it might sound like it would take a lot of sheep to get volume up, with some selective breeding and some kiwi smarts Spring Sheep Milk Co have found a way to make this  primary product into high value exports.

And it’s not the first time that company’s CEO has pulled that off. Scottie Chapman had his first big success with Old Mout cider, the brand he started that led huge category growth, making cider a supermarket mainstay. That business was sold to DB and Heineken, and it’s gone on to be one of the biggest ciders in the world. And you know what? When he started that journey people told him cider wasn’t popular. He proved them wrong, and will he also be right about sheep milk?

To talk the journey, what sheep milk is used for and why sheep make a lot more sense for the world than ever more cows, Scottie Chapman joined us for a half hour chat.

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Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Lovina McMurchy of Movac.

Living in New Zealand we are a bit insulated from just how big some of the world;’s biggest companies are. Amazon, Microsoft and Starbucks are bigger financial entities than many countries, and the things the leaders in those organisations do shape how people live. And there are some kiwis very high in those companies making those decisions.

If you think about how central to life wifi in Starbucks became to so many people before mobile data was affordable, and if you’ve ever been a tourist popping in to take advantage of it for example, you have a kiwi to thank. And if you’ve ever used Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant to order a product chances are you have a kiwi to thank for that. Actually, the same kiwi for both. 

Lovina McMurchy started her career here, but after an MBA from Harvard, she found success in the states, leading up important parts of Starbucks, Skype and Amazon before heading back home to Aotearoa last year to help lead a big new investment fund at Movac. 

To talk the journey, what her hopes for NZ business are and how people can make it in the world’s biggest companies, Lovina joined us for a chat.

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Rob Teina from Supreme Plumbing in Auckland has worked out the formula to keep people interested in his business, growing an audience of over 4,000 on the Supreme Plumbing Instagram. Sharing everything from his tradition of giving the truck a wash ahead of the working week, taking "the bossman" – one of his young children – for a pastry and a cuppa mid-morning or exposing what good and bad workmanship looks like on site, Teina has grown a huge following from his staff of 10. He hit the headlines earlier this year with a series of cash giveaways to help businesses needing a hand over lockdown, a period that he spent on the road a lot as an essential worker. To chat about building his business and brand, learning a trade from apprenticeship up, and cultivating the mindset and conditions for growth, Rob Teina joined us on Business is Boring.

Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation.

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Simon Cooke and Ryan Carville are the founders of brewers yeast company Froth Technologies. Until very recently, even in the booming local craft brewing scene, almost all yeast used was imported from a very small group of commercialised strains. The yeast being used didn't even scrape the surface of the astounding variety of yeasts available, and their potential use in creating new, interesting beers. Last year the two Wellington craft beer professionals set out to change the scope of yeasts available for New Zealand brewers. Their company, Froth Technologies is, after a successful crowdfund last year, working with leading-edge tech and science, and bringing local yeast to the people.

Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation.

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Emma Lewisham is the founder of a skincare brand selling products to address the effects of sun on skin pigment. She's also launching a new initiative to take back the brand's packaging, along with any other beauty packaging, in return for a voucher for their products.

Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation.

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Jacob Kohn and Dr Gaetano Dedual are the co-founders of Futurity, who are in the process of bringing a bio-refinery to Tairāwhiti Gisborne, that would use new techniques to break pine down into its building block chemicals, that then become the platform chemicals that can be used for plastics, resins and all sorts of applications today provided by oil-derivatives. It’s an awesomely ambitious project that’s aiming to create jobs, increase the value we get for timber grown here, and help keep carbon in the ground.

Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation.

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Rachel Taulelei is the CEO of Kono, a whānau-owned Māori food and beverage business selling food, wine and produce brands all around the globe. Before this role, Taulelei founded Yellow Brick Road, a company selling the best seafood to top hospitality operators, and was NZ Trade Commissioner in Los Angeles. Today she is on the prime minister’s Business Advisory Council, and you might have seen her on one of the Conversations on Covid-19 that the PM was running. To talk about what being whānau owned means and her hopes for the rebuild post-Covid-19, Rachel Taulelei joined us on the podcast.

Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation.

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David Bell is an investor and business advisor. As a professor at US university Wharton, he taught many successful business founders and innovators. He's been an investor in pioneering companies like Diapers.com, Bonobos and Harry’s, and worked with Warby Parker, a US glasses company that's changing the world of how glasses are made, sold and priced.Its innovative direct-to-consumer model allows people to get pairs sent to their houses to try and then send back. It battles against monster incumbents that own the whole distribution chain, charge what they like - and still manage to make cool glasses affordable. It’s now a retail phenomenon, and Bell was one of the first investors and advisors to the company.

Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation.

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Emily Miller-Sharma is the general manager at Ruby. She's one of the driving forces behind Mindful NZ, an industry body bringing together local producers to advocate for better standards of traceability and to create locally appropriate codes of conduct to find out what the industry is facing. Emily talks about initiatives like apprentices, moving toward more sustainable choices throughout the business and the story of Ruby.

Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Asantha Wijeyeratne is the CEO of PaySauce. Since coming to New Zealand in 1988 as a young accountant, he has built multiple million-dollar businesses in the payroll space. Seeing that the payroll system could be done better he launched an early technology solution in 1995 called SmartBooks. Later know as SmartPayroll it grew to process a good portion of New Zealand business payrolls before eventually being sold to local tech giant Datacom in 2013. But there was still an itch to innovate in the space again with a mobile-first offering that took advantage of emerging tech. So in 2014, PaySauce was born. PaySauce has been in the news lately with its offer of a free "essentials" payroll solution, PaySimple, for New Zealand businesses affected by Covid-19. Its successful right issue brought on board its first institutional investor.

To talk about the journey, what this disrupted world means for business, and how his work in the community helped lead to a Queen’s Service Medal, Wijeyeratne joined us by Zoom from Sri Lanka where he was visiting family at the beginning of lockdown.

Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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