While the McPhails have seen the revenue from their salad and vegetable empire double in the last four years, they have also had a challenge over their water take.
From small beginnings in 1975 stitching up bags of potatoes with sack needles, Murray McPhail and his two sons, Gordon and Richard, built Gisborne-based LeaderBrand into the country’s largest grower and retail supplier of broccoli, lettuce and sweetcorn.
Sold under the LeaderBrand and Pure’n Ezy labels, they have a 60% domestic market share in retail salads.
Revenue has doubled in the past four years and there’s been an increase to 280 fulltime equivalent workers a year, with a total of about 600 staff employed during its busy period.
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.
However, this led to some issues this year when the company was told by Gisbourne District Council that it had to cut its annual water take from the Makauri and Matokitoki from 4.2 million cubic litres of water to 1.5 million and then by a further 838,970 litres.
Gordon McPhail said the decision was disappointing considering the council had previously encouraged the sort of growth the company was looking for. An appeal by the company against the ruling was subsequently dismissed.
As 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 130m-long salad processing facility commissioned in 2017.
LeaderBrand exports to 11 countries and has long been New Zealand’s biggest producer of buttercup squash for the Japanese and Korean markets.
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.
2018: $160 million