MEET YOUR {OUTSTANDING} MAKER - RED SHOOTS

Red Shoots is a great New Zealand story, a purpose-driven drinks maker focusing on sustainably creating nutritious, high-quality products. They achieve this with four ranges of drinks: Daily Good, Good Cocktail Co, Just Fresh Co and Happy Hour Collective. Followers of the Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards will recognise Daily Good, as these drinks won three medals in the 2021 Awards.

A trip through the UK and US was the catalyst for Red Shoots to develop the latest addition to their product range - Daily Good Immunity Shots, a relatively new product that has found success in a short amount of time.

Travelling around the US, Daily Good founders and business partners Rhona MacKenzie and James Sweetbaum noticed a variety of shot products in stores. “We were in the States together and saw a lot of shot products on the market. Many didn’t use quality ingredients,” Rhona explains. They were comprised of fillers like fruit juices, rather than pure, nutritious, whole ingredients.

About the same time, Rhona learned about James's family’s farm in Fiji, which exported turmeric and ginger to New Zealand for other major drink companies. Ranadi Organics has been in the family for more than 60 years spanning three generations. Upon hearing this, a lightbulb went off for Rhona, and she explains she was compelled to do something with this incredible story. “I said to James, we need to be adding value to this incredible story and product.” With that thought, the duo got to work creating the Daily Good Immunity Shots during early 2020 when the pandemic first hit, and releasing them later that year.

“Ranadi Organics has such an incredible backstory that doesn’t get told. It’s unique, it’s got a real-world economic impact in Fiji, it’s incredible” she says.

“Ranadi Organics is sustainable and has a positive social impact for those living and working on the farm” she says. “It’s run by women, with a female CEO, and 75 percent of the workers are women.” While it’s common nowadays for companies to brand themselves as sustainable, sometimes it can have little impact and meaning. Rhona uses the analogy that “sustainability is more than just a glass bottle” to communicate this idea. “Sustainability for me, is having a positive impact in an economic, social and environmental way. That leads to being purpose driven. We have a purpose within the Pacific, it drives us, it’s incredibly important.”

Rhona says Red Shoots supports a range of initiatives in Fiji. We support employment by sourcing turmeric and ginger from Ranadi Organics. We support education programmes, as well as working closely with Cure Kids Fiji to ensure children have access to more healthcare.

Rhona continues, explaining diversity is another important element for the way Red Shoots operates. “We’ve found diversity to be important, we’re really proud of it,” she says. “I’m a woman, James is a gay man, we employ women, and we’re really proud of that, it’s resonated with a lot of retailers, and it’s fantastic to make a real difference in women’s lives."

One of the biggest issues for the business has been the supply chain. “Our supply chain is a complex one because it’s in Fiji which is never simple,” she laughs. “It was a challenge getting Randi Organics up to scale so they could supply us with what we need and getting it out of Fiji into New Zealand. We have that system now in place, we know how to grow it, we know how to work, and have trained the farmers so they can pick and process it,” she says.

It was “fantastic” to be recognised by their industry peers in the Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards. “It was amazing, James and I were so proud. We went along to the awards evening, it was so exciting, your industry is recognising you and you’ve got a product that’s great.”

Daily Good has received the following accolades from the Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards 2021: Daily Good Turmeric, Gold Medal;  Daily Good Ginger, Silver Medal and Daily Good Blackcurrant, Bronze Medal.

To learn more about Red Shoots visit the Red Shoots website and to learn more about the Daily Good range visit its website.

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