On the other hand, his brother Michael is more of a crunchy fan; the pair being the duo behind Dunedin’s Bay Rd peanut butter which recently produced its 1000th batch.
Michael Hastie was unaware of the milestone until his brother pointed out the batch number and it was now something he considered an achievement — “just to still be here”.
Bay Rd was launched at the Otago Farmers Market in 2017.
Initially produced from a commercial kitchen at the Musselburgh Baptist Church, it moved to premises in Roberts St the following year.
Four years ago, it shifted further down the street .
Michael, who also has a building business, said it took longer than he thought to “get anywhere in business” but the important thing was to be more patient.
“I started in my 20s and wanted everything now. Now I’m not in such a rush … and that’s OK,” he said.
While Bay Rd was stocked around the country, the brothers’ focus was ostensibly on remaining a local business.
They had no interest in “taking over the world”.
Peanut butter had not been immune to price increases; the cost of the peanuts they bought — mostly from Argentina — had gone up well over 50% since they started.
Mark made most of the peanut butter and they had intentionally kept their business simple, producing just the two varieties — crunchy and smooth.
A key difference was roasting their own peanuts in a nut roaster which they sourced from Turkey, which in itself was an interesting story.
Initially, they used a coffee roaster. Michael had been researching for several years where to best source an actual nut roaster.
They received a random email from a Turkish business asking if they would be interested in a peanut roaster and Michael replied, asking if they had any customers in New Zealand or Australia that he could chat to.
The business had just sold a roaster to a businessman in Sydney, who had a large snack company, so Michael gave him a call and it turned out not only was he from Dunedin, but he also went to King’s High School, the same school as the Hastie boys.
“It was like a serendipitous moment. He gave me the confidence to actually buy the roaster from this company.
“He’d also lived in Turkey … it was pretty bizarre.
“You need those little bits of luck every now and then.”
The roaster can roast about 500kg of peanuts a day, the equivalent of about 1000 jars, and that was “way more” than they were doing.
But there was plenty of capacity if they wanted to increase.
They are in the process of changing the shape of the jar; they are now sourcing jars made in New Zealand rather than importing them.
sally.rae@odt.co.nz
