Demands for food safety and convenience have been key drivers in the success of LeaderBrand, New Zealand’s largest horticulture business, owned and operated by the McPhail family in Gisborne.
From small beginnings in 1975 stitching up bags of potatoes with sack needles, Murray McPhail and his two sons, Gordon and Richard, have built LeaderBrand into the country’s largest grower and retail supplier of broccoli, lettuce and sweetcorn. With a 60% domestic market share in retail salads sold under the LeaderBrand and Pure’n Ezy labels McPhail senior says the most significant change in his time has been the consumer environment: “Consumers want convenience.”
LeaderBrand crops 3500ha of land in Gisborne, Ashburton and Pukekohe and employs 500 permanent and seasonal staff who pick virtually every week of the year. One of Gisborne’s largest enterprises, the company has separate processing facilities for its domestic and export businesses and uses state-of-the-art equipment including a 130-metre long salad processing facility commissioned in 2017.
Gordon McPhail says vertical integration allows the company “to guarantee quality and food safety though traceability right back to the seed and the paddock it was planted in,” a process that was put to the test in 2017 when a Caesar salad range tested positive for listeria, which led to a nationwide recall.
LeaderBrand exports to 11 countries and has long been New Zealand’s biggest producer of buttercup squash for the Japanese and Korean markets. Export market manager Jeff Chambers says the rapidly growing middle class in Asia has also created huge demand for LeaderBrand’s long-life pouched products, which have a stable 15-month shelf life.
In addition to owning 2600ha of land around Gisborne worth more than $150m, Murray McPhail lives with his wife Lyn among the vines on the 230ha Ashwood Estate. Valued at $17m, it is one of Gisborne’s largest producers of chardonnay and pinot gris.