Forget about a five or 10-year plan, the Wakatu Incorporation's food and beverage division, Kono New Zealand, has one for 500 years.

That's what new chief executive Rachel Taulelei told the 90 delegates at a chartered accountants' conference in Nelson on Wednesday.

The Nelson-Marlborough regional conference was themed on regional businesses aligning with "2030 megatrends" and in her first speech since starting the job last month, Taulelei said that while "megatrends" influenced Kono's marketing, "they do not influence our world view".

"Kono's values allows it to plan for the wellness and prosperity of our grandchildren's grandchildren with confidence and conviction.

"We work to a relatively long-term 500-year plan - we take that horizon all the way back to our activities today. It's a very deliberate strategy recognising our place in time."



Wakatu, with 4000 owners descended from original Maori landowners in the Nelson region, has assets worth $250 million. Its 10 million shares can only be traded among the descendants.

Kono has 30 per cent of Wakatu's business and is one of the biggest employers in the region. Its activities span wine, horticulture, seafood, biscuit manufacture and food distribution to 200-300 restaurants. Its wines have won awards and Taulelei said it was soon to release an "oyster stout".

Eighty per cent of its products go to 40 overseas countries.

Taulelei, who developed the Wellington company Yellow Brick Road, recently acquired by Wakatu, said that as "people of the land and sea" the iwi shareholders considered themselves kaitiaki - guardians - of the region's natural resources, "not only now but also into the future".

"Our endeavour is to be the best indigenous branded food and beverage company in the world," she said.

"New Zealand is held in great regard world-round for our production of food and beverages. The challenge is for us to live up to that so that it's not simply marketing rhetoric."

The art of marketing was always in the story, which had to be real and authentic.

"Kono's story is an enviable tapestry of history that's probably as broad as it is deep.

"When we apply that to our products on a global scale, we become instantly unique. We look for opportunities through that to capture our customers' imagination through authenticity and our 'indigeneity' [indigenousness]."

She said there was now a strong demand for transparency, traceability and food safety among overseas clients and as a vertically integrated company Kono was well positioned to provide that.



New Zealand was a niche producer that should work at being a world leader in luxury goods.

"The space in which the country and Kono specifically needs to operate in is that of limited supply, high demand and consequently extraordinarily high value. And you've got to do it in a sustainable manner."

Kono's challenge as Maori was to extract the greatest value from its resources while remaining cognisant of its position as a place-holder.

"People have come before us and many many will come after us, and the best that we can hope to do is leave those resources in a better condition than when we arrived."

New Zealand King Salmon chief financial officer Andrew Clark also presented a case study and said the Nelson-based company marketed its premium Ora King brand, launched three years ago, as "to salmon what wagyu is to beef".

"We've gone out and tried to establish a premium position with a story that goes with that."

While king salmon comprised less than 1 per cent of world production it had the best taste and texture and double the omega-3 content of the Atlantic salmon that massively dominated markets by volume.

Ora King, with breeding traceability going back 20 years, now made up 25 per cent of the company's sales, Clark said, and was being used by chefs in top restaurants in New Zealand, the United States and other countries.

He said NZKS had roughly $100 million in annual sales and spent $40 million on salmon food, with its exports commanding a strong premium over Atlantic salmon from Norway and other producing nations.

"Sustainability is very important. It's probably the first or second question that any customer in the US would ask us."