('COUNTRY CALENDAR' THEME) - (WHISTLES) - Always a favourite on every rural road.... (DOG BARKS) (CHICKS CHIRP) - When they came to New Zealand, he had big ambitions. - He's such a risk taker, and I'm just the polar opposite. - We have our 3000 chooks arrive today. - His superpower is just being so patient. - But I was ready for another challenge. Now we have cattle on this place as well. - It was actually a total nightmare, but so worth it in the end. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024 (LAID-BACK MUSIC) - We were on a dairy farm share-milking, and I saw in Germany always that a lot of dairy farmers started with little portable chicken sheds and marketed their eggs themselves, and I thought, 'Oh, I can build one myself.' So that's what I did. - Timo and Jonna Christophersen were share-milking in North Canterbury when Timo built a small chicken shed for just 250 birds. - And we started selling those eggs in cafes and restaurants and, uh, yeah, I think that's when we got into the whole egg idea. - They both came to New Zealand from small villages in Germany and spent a decade here milking cows. Three and a half years ago, they were ready for a change and leased 100ha at Hawarden and the Hurunui basin. They imported a big shed from France and bought 3000 hens. - Well, we wanted to build our own egg brand, so we knew that was we put all our 'eggs in one basket', you know, like, stop dairy farming and wanted to go all in with the chook farming, with poultry. Yeah, and then all of a sudden, we had 3000 chooks instead of 250. - A year later, they imported a second shed. - They are fully automatic, fully portable, a little bit of mission to shift them actually because they are that big, but a big tractor or digger does it. The birds stay the whole laying cycle, and when they finish, that's when we get the shed cleaned and disinfected, and shift them to the new spot so they're new birds going into fresh a pasture, new paddock, and the old place can just have some time to regenerate, and we can grow some new grass and everything in there. - Today is a big day for Timo, Jonna and their children, Pippa and Louis. They're taking delivery of 3000 1-day-old chicks. - We change them every 14 months. So 14 months of laying our birds, and then we need to have a new flock and replace them. And it's always a big day because (SIGHS) they all arrive, they all need to be fed by hand still, especially the first 14 days, and you really need to be looking after them because they're really vulnerable at the start. They need it quite warm, they don't like draft, and, yeah, just until they grow their feathers nicely. What do you think of them, Pippa? - They're cute. - They're cute? Do you wanna give them names? - I can't find them. - Too many names? - Is your one a boy, Louis? - No. - LAUGHS: No. - Young birds can be very nervous. The Christophersens were buying in 16-week-old chickens, but they have fewer problems with chicks that are just a day old. - If they hear noises or a door slams, which they're not used to, then they all jump up and run in one corner, and it's quite dangerous because they're all smothering them. So they're all crawling on top of each other. The bottom ones will suffocate if you're not reacting quick enough to that. So I think our birds, when we rear them ourselves, they're quite trained as well to noises because we roll up the door, the kids sometimes walk in there, you know, and they're used to that kind of stuff. - Timo and Jonna first got together many years ago. - We met in Germany, because we lived just, well, I don't know, 9km apart. - I think I was 18, and Timo was 21. - And we were three years a couple, and then I decided to go the first time to New Zealand as a work experience, farming. So I went for six months over here, I think Rakaia, Dunsandel area, and worked there on the dairy farm, and I came back. - When he returned briefly to Germany, they decided to split up. - At some stage, we just went different directions. And back then, we didn't have social media, so all I saw from New Zealand was, like, printed-off photos from cows in the rain. It looked so sad. It didn't look like, 'Oh, you know, I went to paradise. Do you wanna come?' So I was just like, 'Yeah, whatever,' and I was so settled in Germany that I'm just not that globetrotter. I never wanted to leave home. I didn't even want to go travelling, and we just started drifting apart, really. And then, yeah, we broke up, and then he went over here straight away pretty much. - When Timo came back to the dairy farm, he was offered the manager's job. - I stayed, and I managed for three years a dairy farm and then slowly progressed into share-milking. And even over that time, Jonna and I always stayed in contact. Like, once a year, we sent an email, and we knew always what the other one was up to. - Seven years later, Timo returned to Germany for a friend's wedding. - And that's when I catched up with Jonna, and then we thought, 'Oh, I don't know. Somehow, we belong together,' or we both were thinking that, and maybe we should try it. And it was stressful time because we both had partners as well at that time, and, you know, like, it was a nightmare, um, but... - While we were in it, we thought, 'Oh my God, what are we doing?' you know. - Jonna joined Timo on the dairy farm, and marriage and children soon followed. - When it all happened, I felt like that was so meant to be, um, because basically, if Timo wasn't here, you know, I would probably go back home. This is how strong that connection is. How was your weekend? - Oh, it was pretty good, actually. - Yeah? We are grading once a week and getting eggs in obviously every day in trays, and then, you know, once a week, we have a big job of, like, grading them, packing them in the boxes, dating them. - Jonna and Timo recently took on a full-time worker, Anita Hood, for the business they've named Omegga Eggs. - I'm looking for cracks that might be in the eggs, just very, very fine ones that you can't kind of see with the naked eye. That's why we have the, um, lights underneath ` so that it just shows the crack. - Anita doesn't come from a farming background. - I was a beauty therapist for 18 years, self-employed with a home-based clinic, and just to top up my income on a Friday, I'd come and work for Omegga Eggs just delivering in Christchurch. And as they got bigger and bigger, a little bit of pressure kind of came on for me to come on full-time. And it's kind of a really fast-moving, progressive business. It's kind of exciting to get on board with something like that. So I did the big move, and much to my clients' horror, I came aboard, so... Can I have some more eggs, please, Jonna? - While they would like a flash packing shed, at the moment, they're working out of a garage. - To be honest, at some stage, we ran out of money. You know, we all ramped everything up from our cash flow, so it's hard. We grow much quicker than we can afford to be. (RELAXING MUSIC) - Timo and Jonna Christophersen were already growing a crop of linseed on their North Canterbury farm when they were told about its special qualities. - He mentioned, 'Oh, have you heard about feeding linseed to chooks 'to increase the omega-3 levels in the eggs?' And that's how we started thinking about it. - Jonna believes omega-3 has many health benefits. - It's got so many. It's good for brain and heart health. It's good during pregnancies. It's really good for depression and anxiety, which is a big thing these days, I find. It just upgrades the egg to, like, a whole new level, I reckon. It's anyways like a healthy protein ` and a cheap one. - Jonna also has a hairdressing business. - Hello, how are you? - Good. How are you? - Good. - Come on through. - Thank you. I hope it's a bit cooler in here. - Yeah. - What are we going to do today? - Well, I've got a wedding on, so I would like you to straighten it, please. - OK. I was a mobile hairdresser, so I used to drive to my clients. - In New Zealand, hairdressing took a back seat until she had children. - When I came over, I helped Timo on the farm. And then, you know, I was pregnant, had the children, and I couldn't really be out there milking anymore. - Hairdressing had the huge benefit of helping Jonna to improve her English. - When I came over here, you know, I wasn't even thinking about hairdressing, because I couldn't speak. You know, when you can't speak a language, how can you be hairdresser? It's pretty hard. So I just started helping Timo on the farm, which just happened really naturally. And then we had children, and I couldn't go out any more and milk in the mornings, and I thought, 'Well, maybe I should go back hairdressing,' you know, and that really helped my language, because, you know, it's just Timo and I at home. We speak German 24-7. And I'd always try to make lots of, you know, friends and acquaintances to up my language, but the hairdressing really, really helped. - The farm at Hawarden takes up most of Jonna's time. Hairdressing takes the rest, so she gets very little time to indulge her greatest passion ` horses. - It's like the most` I get all emotional. ...the most important thing next to, obviously, family and everything, but yeah, it just gives me energy. I can really tell now that if I don't get to go out to them, my batteries are so empty. So I think the older I get, the more I appreciate that I have a hobby like that. - Jonna came to New Zealand from Germany for love, but she didn't adjust to life here as easily as Timo. - When I was quite busy here, I felt really, you know` sort of, I was busy to take my mind away from being homesick, and then I became a mum, and that was really hard because it makes you, a bit, you know, isolated. I couldn't really talk. I didn't really know a lot of people. And it's supposed to be the best time of your life, and I felt like, 'Oh, I'm so homesick,' and then randomly, someone turned up at our place and asked me if I wanted to sell retired racehorses, and I said, 'Yes, of course.' I thought that was the coolest thing. And, um, I did that full-time for three years, and we` yeah, we sold lots of racehorses. And looking back, that was probably the best time of my life. When you really wake up and you do what you love, it really doesn't feel like work. (RELAXING MUSIC) - What are we doing with the sheep? - We just kept them in, all the lambs, and then we find the five biggest ones, which are going then to the` to our butchery tomorrow, huh. - Timo does a little of everything on their 100ha. His flock of sheep may be small, but it takes up quite a bit of his time. - Now with having 6000 chickens, doing all the marketing around it, having the butchery, actually, sheep are a lot of work and normally don't fit in my work time frame. So it's good to have them here, but we can't have really too many because they're just work-intensive. OK. Can you get your marker? And then I'll go through them and I'll tell you which ones to mark. - OK. - Growing up on a farm in Germany determined Timo's future. - We were dairy farming ` not a lot of cows. Like, I think there's still the average in Germany is 70 cows. Um, we had, I don't know, 35, 40 or something like that ` so tiny. So it was always my first thing, what I wanted to do when I grow old, I wanted to be a farmer, but then my parents pushed me, 'Do something before you do farming,' so I did an engineering trade before I did my agriculture study, um, but, yeah, farming was always the thing I wanted to do. That one over here, Louis. Hop over there. That one was a black face. - They've all got black faces. - They all have black faces. (CHUCKLES) - Timo's experience as an engineer has proved useful on the farm. - A lot of skills I got from there, you know ` welding, fixing things up. It was awesome. I enjoyed it, but I just didn't enjoy working inside the whole day. So that was always, yeah, the hard part of it. (COWS MOO) We have around 16 to 20 Angus prime cattle, and then there are a couple of Hereford cross and some calves running there at the moment. We tried out other cattle before as well Hereford and things like this, but the Angus were always the best killing ones. So for me as a butcher buying animals in, I always had the most value out of the meat through the Angus cattle. (CALLS TO COWS, WHISTLES) - Having grown up around cows, it wasn't surprising that Timo continued farming cattle when he moved here. - I think my passion was always dairy farming, actually, and we just changed to the chicken thing because we wanted a different lifestyle and we thought that was a good way and things led us to do it, and I got a little bit, not bored, but I was ready for another challenge. But still, I think in my heart I'm more like a cattle farmer than chicken or sheep. Yeah. (WHISTLES) Our selection process is pretty simple. We just go by the biggest and roundest cattle we can find in this mob, and then three of them going tomorrow to the abattoir; and then hopefully in another five days, back to our butchery in Woodend. (WHISTLES, CALLS TO COWS) (CALMING ACOUSTIC MUSIC) - These days, Timo and Jonna Christophersen call North Canterbury's Hurunui basin home. Timo's vision is large and they're farm small, so they're including others in their dream. They've created a brand for the region, Hurunui Farms, and they've included farmers like George and Penny Johns, who run Kaiwara Angus stud. - Happy new year. - Happy new year. George, how are you? Good, good. - The idea behind the Hurunui Farms is basically having produce from the basin. You know, it's not just our farm. It's, like, us and surrounding farms. And of course, George and Penny are not making a living through us ` we take way too little cattle from them ` but it's just that opportunity for people that buy that meat, they really know where it comes from, and we just think it's really cool that we are sort of ambassadors for the basin. - We've tried to support them from day one, and I get my hair cut by Jonna. It's good helping them out. They've quite an ambitious sort of couple, so it's good, yeah. It's good to see. A bit of clover here, and they've started to fatten up nicely. - Yeah. - Timo is always coming up with new ideas and making them happen. - Oh, he's insane, really. He, um... Yeah, Timo is a huge risk taker. His super power is just being so patient. I just take one step at a time. I'm a stress head, big time, and so sometimes I just leave him with certain things, because I know that if I dive too deep into the topic, I get all stressed ` and that works fine. - How's your butchery? How's your shop coming along? - Oh, yeah, it's just` - Prep work. - When Timo comes up with another grand scheme, he knows he probably wouldn't even confide in me because I'd be like, 'Stop.' (LAUGHS) Yeah, I really had a serious talk to him. I was like, 'Just stop now and, you know, let's just get out of the woods here and...' you know, but, um, yeah, he's got so many ideas. - That drive has seen them move into a new venture, their own butchery. They've found premises and Woodend and hired butchers Steve Pawson and Marcel van Arendonk. - This is the German bratwurst. We're using seasonings that are imported directly by Timo and Jonna for this sausage. So it comes from a small village in Germany, and we mix it together with lots of care, lots of love, and then we're going to put it in the skin. - It has been quite a challenge. So you're forking out at first a lot of money until you get any return. So it always takes you a year until you see something or that it covers itself. So we had to subsidise it all the way through the chicken business. - Timo and Jonna are happy to leave the day-to-day running to Marcel. - How are you? - How are you? They're not here every day. So they leave me alone, and I make a few decisions ` some are right and some are wrong, um, but, you know... Yeah, so that's really good ` just being able to learn, start, and get to where are now. We base ourself on the German philosophy of their food, and they use German spices, which is different for the Kiwis. It's a taste that acquired and the Kiwis are liking it, so we're selling a lot of it now. So that's a good experience, to be selling something that's not made everywhere Ah, gidday, Shane, how ya goin'? - Gidday, mate. You all right? - You got an order? - Yes. - I'll just go out the back and get it for you. - Cool. No worries. - We're selling our meats in restaurants, pie shops, online through our online shop. We are as well in supermarkets, but we just started with our local Four Squares and just with some products, so slowly step into the supermarket game, and we probably won't have a big presence there, but with just single items like maybe our sausages or our marinated pork steaks and things like that, so just specialising. - The Christophersens like to offer regular tastings of their products to help build awareness. - The farm is Hawarden... - Oh yeah. - ...and we're sourcing all the meat from our farm or our friends out of the district. - Today we are in Christchurch at the Terra Viva Cafe and Garden Centre, and we actually started supplying the Terra Viva ` when? - Seven years ago. - Seven years ago. So we started with 250 hens and we didn't know where to sell the eggs, and so we got here and we have been supplying them ever since, actually. And then we started the meat as well, and we thought, 'Oh, it might be a really nice location to, you know, market our meat a bit more.' - They each bring their own strengths to all that they're doing. - I think you are pretty much for the design. Um, colour, I don't know, I think the owner has quite a good taste. Well, that's what I reckon. - You know. - And, um, yeah, I don't know. You do` You do most of the marketing, I'm more the farming. - I do the stuff you see, like the marketing, the branding, the pink, the green, and, you know, like girls' things that come to me easily. But then, behind the scenes, there's so much more to do, and that's Timo's, because he pulls all the strings on the farm, in the shop, with the people that work for us, and, like, yeah, I could never do what Timo does ` ever. So, yeah. (CALMING ACOUSTIC MUSIC) Jonna and Timo's latest venture into retail has all evolved within a few short weeks. - Hello. - Hi. - They now have a shop in Christchurch's Riverside Market. - What have we got today? - Lots. I remember me walking past you with Pippa months ago and thinking` and it was empty, and I thought, 'Oh, wouldn't that be amazing?' but it seemed so far away. And Timo had the same thought, and he just contacted Riverside Market, and then it all happened. So everything just falls into place now, and, yeah, it's pretty exciting, and it's always such a nice vibe coming in here. It's, like, always so uplifting, I find. - Just like a big` just like steak. - You sear them. You sear them, and then have you got a thermometer? - Yeah. - Yeah. You just` I think that would be 140 Fahrenheit. I don't know what it is in Celsius and, like, oh, perfect. The big advantage is, like, to finally have a pop-up shop and show your brand not just on social media. And people walking through here, they might not buy always something, but they` you know, we have brand exposure. (CALMING ACOUSTIC MUSIC) - The latest addition to the Christophersen's farm came thanks to their son, Louis. He got some money from his grandparents and decided to buy a pig. - He got actually three pigs, and I don't know, it might be our next little venture, that we're using pigs to me or to Marcel, our butcher, I don't know who, but I have to pay always for it. - After just three years, it's still too early for Jonna and Timo to pat themselves on the back. - You just always hear it from other people, 'Oh, you've done this and this,' but we're not, um... - Yeah, we I think we don't feel like that. (LAUGHS) - Yeah. - Because every day` - Because we're still so busy. - I can see the light on the end of the tunnel, but we are still, like, full speed going. - There's always a new challenge. (CALMING MUSIC RESOLVES) ('COUNTRY CALENDAR' THEME) - Next time ` - Making hay is as much of an art form as it is a science. - two brothers stamping their mark on the family business. - It's been a wonderful season this year for growing grapes. - The boys have done fantastic. The place is a credit to them, it really is. - That's next time on Hyundai Country Calendar.