Fruitbowl - Fresh Ideas from Hawke's Bay

We’ve had fantastic feedback from the event last week with most people wanting to come back.  It’s very cool to see an event materialize and get on the national calendar. Simons write up elicited two articles in the Herald this morning which created good profile for the event and the region. Call for an online capital market Video to overtake email as best way to keep in touch ...Read more

Phew, our first Accelerate conference in the Bay went off without a hitch. 55 leaders of fast moving companies descended on the area and were shown the region in style. Wednesday night a few early attendees headed for dinner at Pipi’s.  Many commented how beautiful it was here and how it felt like Marin county. Today kicked off with a full on session from Andy Lark, head of Enterprise ...Read more

The team at Tank have been working with ENZAFoods for some months now on reinvigorating Fruit Hitz (Fruit Puree) and developing Cool Hitz (Fruit Freeze). These products are the real thing in terms of ENZAFoods’ unwaivering commitment to develop a product that not only tasted great, but was also healthy – no preserves, no artificial colours or flavours, gluten free etc, etc. The ...Read more

On Friday we held our first Australia and New Zealand Xero Partners Conference in the Bay. The event was targetted at our top partners and we brought in around 50 accountants and their partners from Auckland, Wellington Taupo, Christchurch, Tasmania, Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast. We held the formal part of the program at the Crown Hotel and finished off with a great night at Te Awa. ...Read more

Airnet and ComputerCare would like to announce that ComputerCare NZ Ltd has purchased the IT sales and services division of Airnet NZ Ltd. The branch will continue to operate from its premises at Whakatu. ComputerCare CEO Wayne Masters wishes to assure existing Airnet IT clients that it will be business as usual with all existing staff staying on. “We will be ensuring that current service ...Read more

After a very robust process the Hastings District Council has announced the new brand (developed by Attn! marketing pr) that will promote the district. The brand was launched to media and to tourism operators on Thursday Dec 17. The feedback from the launch was very positive and was seen as an important step forward to market Hastings as a tourism destination and to evoke community pride. The ...Read more

I’m proud to announce that Hawke’s Bay Opera House has been awarded a five-star Qualmark rating – just more proof it is an international standard facility in Hastings, the Heart of Hawke’s Bay. Hawke’s Bay has so many positive things to offer and I’m really impressed with how Fruitbowl is taking that story to the world. As a Fruitbowl newbie I thought my debut should splash down ...Read more

Hopefully many of you saw the excellent “Best of Design 2009” feature that Urbis Magazine (issue 52) ran recently. This feature originated from a pitch that Venture Hawke’s Bay sent to Urbis back in January of this year highlighting our varied and highly skilled creative community (designers, artists etc). After some discussion Urbis came to Hawke’s Bay in July of this year. Venture ...Read more

The Port of Napier has produced a solid profit despite the economic recession affecting trade throughput. Port of Napier chairman Jim Scotland announced today an annual tax paid profit of $8.95 million for the year ended September 30 2009. Mr Scotland said the result reflected a drop in cargo throughput to 2.893 million tonnes (down 9.1%) and lower ship numbers. The port had weathered the ...Read more

I wanted to share with you some local champions that we have in our business community – Hawke’s Bay company, Smart. We use Smart for our day-to-day accounts work, they sort out GST, PAYE and manage Xero. I ‘can’ do this stuff, but why would I? My time is better spent doing business development and billable work. Smart specialises in outsourced office support – perfect for ...Read more