A hive of co-operative industry: Tui Bee Balme turns 25 years old
It’s 25 years since Tui Bee Balme’s humble beginnings in the Tui Community Trust’s kitchen when the balme was poured from a teapot into glass pottles and the handmade labels were decorated with bees and flying love-hearts.
Business co-founder Frans Muter has fond memories of the first years when the product, developed from a recipe gifted to the community by beekeeper Colin Isles, was produced by community effort.
“Once a month we would not cook in the kitchen, but instead we’d have a working bee producing the balme. The kitchen was full of jars and turned into a production unit until the business grew too big to do it in that fashion. We used to carry everything to the woolshed for labelling and packing and then down a steep slope to the van which would make a daily delivery into Takaka over a badly corrugated and partly unsealed dirt road.”
Today, the founding members are taking a celebratory look back at the evolution of a successful business. It is based on a co-operative structure and employs 16 part-time staff working in a purpose-built facility overlooking Wainui Bay. The product range has undergone its own development from the original bee balme healer to now include reflexology and therapeutic massage waxes, and lip, bug, cough and cold, inflammation relief, and aches and pains relief balme.
The pottles these days are filled by an automated machine and a mini conveyer belt.
“We are also celebrating a quarter of a century of being a co-operative as well as producing a high quality, all-natural product for New Zealand and overseas markets,” says Yana Hoos, another of the founding members. “We don’t have a big markup on the products and our customers benefit from that.”
Customer recognition of the product’s quality is reflected in the sales numbers, still steadily growing despite the current recession. The 200 litres of product produced every week are sold to 400 retail outlets in New Zealand and over 400 overseas customers in 30 countries, and a production franchise business was set up in the UK six months ago.
“We had the product analysed in a lab in Switzerland many years ago,” added Yana, “and they confirmed the different ingredients in the bee balme, but there was an ingredient in the product that the lab could not identify. Of course you cannot create artificially what the bees can create, but we all thought at the time that the mystery ingredient was our good intentions and all the love that went into the product.”
Unlike most conventional businesses, the co-operative relies on a democratic structure, not a hierarchical one, says former manager Barry Broughton, saying it was “quite a different way of working”.
“The business is de facto-owned by the Tui Spiritual & Education Trust and five per cent of turnover is donated to registered charitable trusts. Decisions are made by a managerial team and the workers of the co-operative. The co-operative structure works very well as it creates a sense of ownership, participation and giving service to the business. This creates quite a family business feel and there is a clear desire to keep it that way.”
Staff member Jessica Trevino, who has worked for the co-op for two-and-a-half years doing the pack out and office administration, says she sees great benefits in the structure of the business.
“I enjoy the laid-back atmosphere and being able to take part in decision-making. I benefit from the business structure by being able to do things I normally would not have done in a similar position in another business, such as accompanying another team member to a conference recently.”
The co-operative also gets much-valued wider community support from Fresh Choice, the Rural Service Centre and the Golden Bay Pharmacy (which supply packaging material and recycled boxes free of charge) and the work of Lucid Design’s Galen King.
Although they have yet to decide how to celebrate this birthday, Frans, Yana, Barry and Jessica were unanimous that the bee balme party will be quite a buzz.
Ina Holst
