A year in review with Poaka - NZ Food Award 2022 Winners

­This blog post has been produced in partnership with the New Zealand Food Safety (NZFS) and the New Zealand Food Awards. NZFS is a category partner of the New Zealand Food Awards sponsoring the Primary Sector Award.

Doug and Josh Hill at the 2022 New Zealand Food Awards.

New Zealand Food Safety (NZFS) is a proud sponsor of the New Zealand Food Awards, owned and operated by Massey University. The Awards provide NZFS with an opportunity to support the food and beverage industry, and to promote the importance of establishing and maintaining a strong food safety culture throughout the food supply chain. 

With a strong emphasis on connections with food and beverage manufactures, Vincent Arbuckle, NZFS Deputy Director-General took the opportunity to meet with Poaka, winners of the Primary Sector Award sponsored by NZFS and Massey University’s Supreme Award for 2022. 

Poaka, which focuses on traditionally made free-range meat products, is the result of a unique vision by founder Josh Hill. Josh set up a ‘paddock-to-plate’ operation on his parent’s chestnut orchard in Aylesbury, west of Christchurch, in 2016. His plan was to raise the happiest, heritage pigs to make the best salami using traditional knowledge and methods. With assistance from his father Doug, Poaka has gone on to become an award-winning business with products sought after by chefs across the country.  

Since winning the Primary Sector and Supreme Awards last year, Poaka has continued to grow. Doug Hill says that they have had one of the busiest years ever at Poaka and have seen a sharp rise in customers.  

“Winning last year’s Primary Sector and Supreme Awards gave a lot of premium brands in the hospitality space the confidence that we had the scale, skills and experience to deliver into the premium end of the market.” 

The win also provided Poaka with the internal validation and confidence needed to achieve their goal of developing their own micro-abattoir. Winning the awards gave a real ‘shot in the arm’ to what was an arduous path. Due to the nature of their business, being able to process their own animals was a no-brainer. 

“Poaka is a bit of a ’square peg’ in a round hole of the large-scale, high-volume meat business and everything we do, from growing our animals outside in large paddocks, to growing them to twice the size of an industrial pig, all make for difficulties for us and our fit into the flow of the standardised system. So being able to take control of that piece of the business puzzle has been great for us, for our animals, and we think for our customers too,” Doug Hill says. 

It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for Poaka. COVID-19 lockdowns impacted their sales, with Doug noting that prior to COVID-19 many of their sales were to European visitors who ‘vacuumed up’ their ‘just like home’ cured meats. While Poaka have not seen these customers return yet, they have used this as a learning opportunity.  

“We've realised that we have to keep innovating in terms of what our product offering is and how we present it to a changing marketplace,” he says. 

Innovation is key to Poaka, particularly when it comes to ensuring that their food is safe.  

“We may be artisans, but we are constantly on the lookout for tech solutions that support and optimise our artisanal processes. Better sensors, improved air flow and humidity controls. All of these feed into raising our food safety benchmarks,” Doug explains. 

This dedication to food safety goes a long way in making sure their products are safe for their customers. 

During Vincent’s visit to the Poaka farm, he was impressed by how settled and well cared for the pigs were and was particularly interested in learning about Poaka’s experiences with developing their micro-abattoir.  

“Poaka is a very interesting and innovative business, and I am keen to see what they do next,” he says. 

Poaka continue to have bold plans for the future. Doug shared that alongside working on the research and development of new products and growing the scale of their farming and business vision, they are also looking forward to enjoying a break over Christmas after a busy year.  

“We've enjoyed some successes, and there seems to be more people interested in sharing in some of what we are doing, so best just to say, watch this space."