Building Upwards

Tell us a little bit about yourself. I wasn’t born a rural person! My parents are both medical professionals, so coming into the farming scene was quite interesting. I thought my parents worked long hours, but it turns out farmers’ hours are worse! I now live near Mount Te Aroha with my husband, Sam, and our three kids – Enzo, 9, Stella, 7, and Cora, 2 – and it’s beautiful. I’m a relief milker and calf rearer come spring, when we calve about 600. We milk about 580 cows all up, so it’s quite intensive when it’s all on.

How has the farm changed over time? Our farm has been in the family for around twenty-five years and has gradually expanded through buying surrounding farms. Our extended family still owns the original farming block in Waihi, and that has been in the Torrens family for over one hundred years. Farming is in our family genes through and through. I don’t think my husband would ever do anything else, and I can already see Enzo will either be a farmer, tractor mechanic or contractor.

What sparked your interest in going chemical-free? I’ve always had allergies on my skin and have contact dermatitis, particularly on my hands. It took me years to figure out it is caused by sulphur – a chemical in a lot of our household products. A friend recommended an amazing laundry powder made by a local lady, and that’s when I jumped on The Innocent Ant bandwagon as a customer. Our house is now around ninety per cent chemical free.

Why did you end up buying The Innocent Ant business? The original owner, Hanna, had put it up for sale. My husband and mother-in-law were the ones who said, “You have to buy this.” I was already making my own stuff and I thought, “Well, if I’m already making it for myself, then why not make it for other people.”

Do you think it would have been different had you started a business from scratch? Yes, definitely. I was buying the recipe and the website and that made life a lot easier. I’ve really enjoyed building it upwards. We’ve added to our product line, so we also offer a soaker, a dishwashing powder and coconut castile soap. We also purchased an existing eco-friendly kitchenware business at the end of last year.

Is it hard running these businesses alongside full-time farming and parenting? It basically comes down to good time-management skills. So long as I’ve got my ducks in a row, it all seems to go really well. But I do often get caught out – the other day I thought, “I really need to make some soap,” and then I literally got a forty-kilogram order the next day.

How was your experience with the RWNZ Activator Programme? It was like a shark tank, because you have to do a fifteen-minute spiel about your business in front of four people and then they grill you – but in a nice, positive way! It was a great confidence booster and great to feel the passion from all of the panellists – they really want to help build up businesses and the women behind them. The ongoing support has been great. We have just started the follow-up online sessions and the first was with Gretchen Young from Deeper Signals. It was really fascinating to delve into our core drivers, values and even talk about imposter syndrome.

Any plans for the future? Be less busy and get the kids to help out more – I’m working on that one! At the moment we are in a real growing stage of the business so there is a lot more money going out than coming in, but that’s fine because we’re in it for the long game.

How do your kids help out? They will quite happily help me out when they are really bored, or I’ve got a big order. They also love our dryer balls. It is their job to get towels out of the dryer and fold them, then play basketball with the balls to get them back in the dryer.

And how about advice for people looking to buy or start their own business? If you’re passionate about something and you have that drive, do it. You’ll find other people that have the same passion as you and will help spread the news. If it doesn’t succeed, then you’ve still got the learnings of what you’ve done. You’ll be surprised at what you can do.

Activator is run by Rural Women New Zealand and the Ministry for Primary Industries. It is designed to support women at the outset of their business journeys. Contact RWNZ for more information on taking part in Activator 2023 at [email protected].