They are partnering with local iwi-owned Ngāpuhi Asset Holding Company and Far North Holdings in a new entity called Kaikohe Berryfruit Ltd Partnership.
Ground levelling and covering, tunnel house erection, drainage and water reticulation, and artificial shelter are all under way on the Ngāwhā Innovation and Enterprise Park.
Berry cuttings in bags of substrate are being prepared at Maungatapere Berries near Whangarei, where the Malleys pioneered large-scale hydroponics seven years ago.
Stocking the new Kaikohe houses with raspberries and blackberries will begin soon, and first production is scheduled for spring 2021.
Most of the water needed will be collected from the tunnel house roofs and stored nearby, while the Matawii reservoir storage and irrigation scheme will provide backup supply.
The dam is being built by Te Tai Tokerau Water Trust alongside Ngāwhā Park, and will distribute water to park tenants and further afield to several hundred hectares of good horticultural land south of the town.
The water will also augment the town supply for Kaikohe.
Kaikohe Berryfruit general manager Nicki Paget says the growing, picking and packing will provide good-quality, well-paid work for between 120 and 160 people, half of whom will be full-time positions.
Project leader Patrick Malley says he is applying lessons from the Maungatapere site and using the same principles and the pre-prepared flat terrain of the new site was instrumental in getting the project off the ground.
The local storage reservoir is being dug, as well as levelling the packhouse, and storage area and the fertigation facility will be built next.
Maungatapere Berries were the Ballance Farm Environment Awards supreme winner for Northland in 2019, consisting of Patrick and his wife Rebecca and their two children, and Patrick’s parents Dermott and Linzi.
It was also highly commended in employee development in the inaugural Primary Industries Good Employer awards in 2018.
Ngāpuhi Asset Holding chief executive Paul Knight says the berryfruit venture would increase local business activity by $34 million annually and become one of the largest employers in the district.
Far North Holdings chief executive Andy Nock says the company had 260ha of land containing the proposed Matawii dam and its associated offset area, plus the industrial sites already under development on SH12.
Cornerstone occupants in the 60ha stage-one of development are Kaikohe Berryfruit and Olivado, the Kerikeri-based oil pressing and processing company.
Nock says manufacturing and skills-based training and research agencies were also committed to locate at Ngāwhā.
That portion of the development is underwritten by Northland Inc, the regional economic agency.
“We are talking to a number of relevant food manufacturers for their processing plants,” Nock said.
“Adding value is the key objective, because Northland currently generates about one-and-a-half jobs for every thousand tonnes of raw materials, compared with Hawke’s Bay at 7 and Auckland with 30.
“We create raw materials and then export them without further processing.”
A “closed loop” strategy was central to the innovation and enterprise park, whereby businesses use each other’s materials and minimise wastes leaving the location.
For example, Olivado will make biogas methane to fuel vehicles from avocado pressings and from outsourced dairy farm waste, along with liquid and solid fertiliser to be used by Kaikohe Berryfruit and other horticulturalists.
