The land Mark and Louise Eder bought seven years ago, flush with the rare advantage of a natural bore, had been running deer when they came to it.
It had earlier been one of the Wyllie family farms, with All Black Alex growing up just over the back paddock.
When the Eders planted the original 80ha of blackcurrants at Omihi the area was steeped in sheep-and-beef farming and the blackcurrants weren’t visible from the state highway.
Mark Eder dwarfed by his blackcurrant harvester.
Now their business is on full show and they supply to Ribena and the Just the Berries nutraceuticals brand, which uses powdered blackcurrant in capsules.
They also have their own line of alcoholic sparkling blackcurrant wine, called Omihi Creek, made at the Waipara Hills winery.
The machinery in the Eders’ yard indicates they’ve invested heavily, although Mark says the gear gets plenty of use in his contracting business.
It was contracting that lured him to Omihi in the first place.
He had spent much of his early career as a grape contractor around Waipara, where the micro-climate was always noticeably warmer and less windy than his home-town Woodend.
When they came across a farm for sale beside Omihi School in 2006 they jumped at the opportunity, knowing the district’s long, warm summers and frosty winters were ideal for growing blackcurrants.
The limestone chip underground provided favourable soil too, as did access to one of only three natural bores in the area.
It provided a platform for Omihi Creek to become one of the largest blackcurrant producers in the country. The Eders tend one million bushes and if you walked the tight rows on their now 130ha you could go 500km.
Mark said the next breakthrough would be having Just the Berries classed as pharmaceuticals. It is a dream they share with his father, David, who co-founded Just the Berries and is in a joint-venture with Palmerston North-based NZ Nutraceuticals.
Mark said the operation was larger than they planned – they had 20-40ha in mind – but being bigger had made it easier to justify the cost of the harvesting, pruning and spray machinery.
“The more times the wheels go round the better it is.”
In harvesting terms the major challenge is the risk of frost in late October and early November.
Helicopters are needed for about three weeks to protect the crop, sometimes flying all night in groups of five.
If the Eders had access to more water they would be able to spray the bushes from overhead, giving them an alternative type of frost protection.
Their bore allows them to run a subterranean drip-line but they are interested in the planned Hurunui Water Project, which could eventually bring irrigation to Omihi from Scargill Valley.
Mark’s sense is the more people in the area who join the scheme, the more cost-efficient it will be.
The Eders enjoyed a relatively quiet February after harvesting their crop in January but are in full swing again this month for Waipara’s grape harvest.
Mark’s grandfather started his family’s links to commercial growing in the late 1940s on a 2ha block at Woodend and his father David started planting blackcurrants in 1969 as part of a range of crops on 130ha.
In the early 2000s David established Just the Berries with Lawrence Heath and Dr Eddie Shiojima.
At Omihi, Mark and Louise are closely involved in the community with the Greening Waipara biodiversity project.
The initiative involves about three dozen properties in the Waipara area, sustained with help from one of the Eders’ partners in the health supplements business, Four Leaf Japan Co.
Mark and Louise regularly host tours linked to Four Leaf and Greening Waipara, while Mark has also been asked to speak overseas on blackcurrants’ health properties.
