With a brand new region to explore and innovative businesses on the menu, the Year 13 Agribusiness class set out to explore one of New Zealand's most under-rated areas.

Geraldine, a little jewel in Canterbury's crown, served as our base for the week, with side-trips to Methven, Timaru and Peel Forest. With an emphasis on connecting with innovative agribusinesses, we kicked off by visiting John McCaw's seed processing operation in Methven. Any commercial seed one can think of is grown, harvested and processed by the company and then exported around the world. Around four tons are processed through the cleaning and packing factory each year. A feature of the business is that the highly specialised machinery has largely been built by John and his co-workers, who have learned engineering skills on the job over the years. With a policy of buying only second-hand machinery and then converting it to specialised needs has resulted in some of the most innovative contraptions we have had the privilege of seeing over the years visiting agribusinesses. 

An agri-tourism business was next, The Peel Forest Outdoor Education Centre, based on formerly agricultural land and surrounded by farmland and Geraldine High School. Besides thinking about how this business can future-proof itself with reduced tourism and restricted travel within New Zealand, the girls and boys (and teachers!) also spent a few hours on the high ropes course. It was certainly one of the highlights of the week as the students challenged themselves to overcome a fear of extreme heights and how to use teamwork to accomplish otherwise impossible tasks whilst suspended in the upper forest canopy.

The following day, we were hosted by Barkers of Geraldine, one of New Zealand's iconic and most successful businesses. The founder's son, Michael Barker treated us to a tour of the business, complete with the full history from startup to the present day and a thorough tasting of many of the 700 products they now produce. The story of innovation and particularly the rationale of each product's launch and the marketing behind it, was both informative and fascinating. We had lunch together at their new facility. The combination of lunch and all that tasting necessitated a decent walk in the Peel Forest!

The Peel Forest walk served up a 'splendery' of tōtara, mataī and kahikatea trees, with one of the white pines measuring an impressive 45.3m in height and 8.4m in circumference, with an accompanying age of over 1000 years!!

Our week concluded with a fascinating visit to Silver Fern Farms processing plant in Paeroa. We were able to see the process from a lamb entering the facility to the vacuum packed leg emerging from the packaging machinery. Due to food security regulations, we were not able to take any photos or videos but the students did agree it was one of the most interesting businesses they had visited ever. Of particular interest was the fact that whilst the plant was highly automated, almost every machine was also staffed by a real person.

Our sincere thanks are offered to McCaw Seeds, Barkers of Geraldine and the senior staff of Silver Fern Farms who did us the huge favour of allowing 34 visitors into a normally 'sealed' environment. Greg McSkimming, their Agribusiness Strategic Solutions Manager, and a parent of the McGlashan community, deserves special mention for his kindness in affording us this opportunity. Silver Fern Farms continues to give generously to our Agribusiness programme year in and year out for which we are extremely grateful. Our thanks also goes to Mrs Lauren Piebenga, head of the senior school at Columba College for joining us on the trip and blessing us with her delightful personality and kindness and to Mr Brent Wolf, our very own Peter Pan and head of accounting at McGlashan for his contribution on the trip and displaying both his tasting enthusiasm at Barkers and his skills on the high ropes.