('COUNTRY CALENDAR' THEME) - The best of New Zealand's rural heartland... - (GRUNTS) - That's perfect. - A couple not afraid to try new things. - When you just don't really know you're doing, just ask for help. Don't be afraid. (WHISTLES) Bonnie, come! Good girl. (DOG YAPS) - There was only one way, and that was all in for me. There was no option B. - Poetry in motion, really, isn't it? Captions by Tom Clarke. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024 (BIRDS CHIRP) (PEACEFUL MUSIC) - In the Manawatu settlement of Halcombe, Emma Jimmieson is up before the winter sun to download orders for her online farm shop, Local Food. - I check the emails for the cafes and wholesale customers, and then I get all our home delivery customers for the day, and that's what goes out to our delivery drivers every day. - The business was started by Emma's husband, Scott Jimmieson, not long before they met. - See you later. - See ya. - Bye. See you soon. - See ya. - It was, like, I'd say ` it sounds pretty bad ` but just a typical male setup. It just needed to be streamlined and organised a lot more. So, yeah, and I suppose that's my speciality. I'm very organised and I like things in their particular order, and I really enjoy the customer side and the farming side and the marketing. And the with staff members, they're awesome. They're like sort of an extension to our family. (SERENE MUSIC) Come on. - Local Food sells produce from farmers nearby, but the main product is eggs. - Originally, the chickens were over in the old deer shed, but now we've renovated it and my in-laws live in the old deer shed now. - Oh, morning, Emma. - Vicky and Craig, they're awesome. They're such great supporters of Scott and I and our business, and we would be pretty lost without them, to be honest. - Are you all ready, Craig? - Yep. - I'm very lucky, hit the jackpot with my in-laws. - Good morning. How are we? - Good morning. - Emma's mother-in-law, Vicky, provides the team with home-baked morning tea every day without fail. - Vicky is our mother hen. She's got a full-time job, but she always is here every morning making sure everyone's looked after. This is our 5000-bird facility. I don't often venture into the sheds. The chickens aren't my favourite. This is our pack room. We collect the eggs here, and then we have our grading and packing and wrapping. And once we've collected them in the morning, that's when we can lift the doors, and the birds head out. They're free-range, yeah, free-range. Mum and Dad are coming down for the weekend, which is awesome. We need to get the electric fence back up and running after we put the new cattle yards in. It's a family business. Like, we all live here on the farm. We have amazing staff members that we treat like our family. And then the community, they know who we are. They know who's produced their food, and they have a real connection to where their food's come from and who actually put the energy into produce it. Annette's sort of in charge in the pack room. Mike's a local ` awesome guy, so on to it. Luke's our newest member, and he is young and enthusiastic and such a nice guy. - Mike and Luke both drive the delivery vans, as does Emma's father-in-law, Craig. - Everyone knows who Craig is. He often stops for a chat. I think, um, as we got busier, Craig sort of had to make his chat time a bit shorter, but the customers love Craig. - CRAIG: You get to meet a lot of good people, and you sort of have a few jokes with them and catch up with what they're doing, especially in their businesses. They're all working pretty hard in the cafe world to, you know` to get things going and doing a great job. You go to someone's home, you get to have a chat to them and that, and I do really enjoy it. - Hello. - Hey, Sarah. How's it going? - Good. How are you? - Good, good. - Got some goodies for me? - There you go. - Thank you very much. - But chooks have a finite laying life, so maintaining consistent supply was a challenge until Scott and Emma bought into a much bigger chicken farm. - Became very stressful, because when you have a five- to six-week downtime, you're always trying to find eggs. But now we've got this other property at Himatangi, uh, we're able to keep consistent supply out. - Hello. How ya going? - Hey, how ya going, boy? - The new plant in Himatangi is run and co-owned by Scott. - I'll grab those. - Yeah, yeah. I was offered an opportunity to become an investor into a new chicken farm, BTK poultry, which has been a big step up for me. Yeah, there's been a lot going on, that's for sure. When we started, we had a little room inside our deer shed. Dad used to weigh every individual egg and put it into an egg cup with some kitchen scales. And all of a sudden, in seven years, we've gone from that to grading sort of 15,000 eggs an hour. (IDYLLIC MUSIC) These chickens, they wake up at about 6am. The lights come on gradually in the middle of the shed, and then they slowly go to the outside of the shed, simulating a sunrise. So they'll wake up and have a bit of food, be able to grab a drink of water, lay their egg. And then at about 8 o'clock, pop holes open automatically, and they'll go outside to go and dust bath or lay under the trees or whatever they wanna do. Originally, when I thought about getting into the business, it wasn't essentially because I was in love with chickens; it was more about just how to make the most amount of money per hectare. But since then, you put so much effort into it, you end up falling in love with them in different ways. I call them my little money-makers. (CHICKENS CLUCK) This shed here's a tree design. It's a more natural habitat for chickens to be living in, as far as the more dominant birds go to the top of the aviary, and then the weaker birds can have more room down on the second layer, but they've all got enough food and water to live a comfortable life. We can manage everything as far as bird welfare from this control box, from managing feed, managing water, managing manure, pop holes, everything. There's a conveyor belt that comes into the farm packer. The eggs are picked up by the suction cups and put on to individual trays. Then they shoot down the conveyor belt, and Bailey's there to just be in charge of making sure the robot's working properly. It speeds up our time by double, (CHUCKLES) not only to save labour, but it also makes it easier on the staff as well, which, you know, it's two birds with one stone for me. Bailey is there to just collect them and put them into the back of the vehicle and away he goes. (PERKY MUSIC) - Manawatu egg farmer Scott Jimmieson started with 500 birds in his parents' deer shed. Only a few years later, he's running 40,000 birds in a state-of-the-art facility in Himatangi. - You load 30-cell trays at a time, and then they'd go along this conveyor belt here. Suction cups will pick up 30 eggs at a time, and Jen's just at the moment checking for any cracks or anything like that. It's a bit of an upgrade for us compared to when we first started. It's a quick machine. Seeing it all work, it's a bit of a poetry in motion. As the eggs come around the carousel, they're weighing individual eggs. Each individual scale is picking up with the little claws. And pretty much the heavier they are, the lower they hang in the carousel. And we started with jumbos, 8's, 7's, 6's, 5's, and then away you go. We're one of the largest organic egg producers in New Zealand. It's been built on over years and years before I got involved into the business. We produce organic, free-range eggs and conventionally farmed free-range eggs as well. Hey, Angel, I'll do that, eh, and you go around the back. Is that all right? - Yeah. - Cool. My role is essentially making sure the business is operationally running and making sure the eggs are obviously moving. That's always a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, depending on the market. So a lot of time planning. - Hi, Craig. How are you? - We do concentrate on direct to market. It's been a passion of mine for probably five years now. We export eggs to Hong Kong and to Singapore, but the core basis of our business is direct to market through cafes and restaurants, home deliveries as well ` not putting all your eggs into one basket. The eggs, they don't stop coming. How are we? - Good. Yourself? - Good, good. - Another major shift has been managing a larger staff. - We had a small team, and it really existed of me and Mum and Dad and a couple of other friends helping us out and things like that. And then when we brought into our new business, that was just a bit of a shock to the system. - Some treaties for our staff members. (ALL GASP EXCITEDLY) - Scott and his wife, Emma, share HR responsibilities. - Trying to build cultures and, you know, really looking after staff properly, because they are the best thing about it, and we rely on them every single day. - What's all happening today? What's everyone doing? - More hard work. - More hard work? (ALL LAUGH) - Big learning curve on how to make sure everyone's happy and that they felt safe and, like, um, they could talk to us and come to us with any problems or anything like that. So you've seen the roster. There's a question mark line. So hopefully just, you know, for some extra... - 'You're firm but fair. - 'Yes. I'm a very black and white, what you see is what you get. 'But in terms of some of the more sensitive topics 'or when you have to deal with those big issues, Scott's really good.' - Which I probably didn't really realise I had until we started managing more people, right? - Yeah, very cool, calm, collected. - But, yeah, culture is the most important thing. - The walls in the pack room look good, eh? Yeah, it looks so much cleaner in there now. - After starting the business, Scott quickly outgrew the makeshift chicken shed at home and needed capital to expand. - I just presumed you could go into the bank and say, you know, 'Can I have $1 million, please?' and walk out the other side, but they sort of laughed me out the door. - So he raised the capital by selling cars. - People did, you know, probably look at you and think, 'He's a chicken farmer/car salesman.' - I did. (LAUGHS) - Yeah. I mean, yeah, so... (LAUGHS) - But you said it was really helpful for the financial side of things. - Yeah. It gave me exposure to, I suppose, the business world. In the early days, the car sales job was keeping the chicken farm alive. There was only one way, and that was all in for me. There was no option B. She just was my baby, that it was only going to succeed, really. This business has been my baby up until this point now, but we've got a new baby on the way, so, um, that might give me something to... - Yeah. - ...to focus on. - That's gonna share some attention, yeah. (BOTH LAUGH) So what, you cut that to pull it through here? - Yeah, that'll just join on to there. - Before Emma met Scott, she dreamed of marrying a high-country farmer. - Yep. (DRILL WHIRRS) - A second one? - Yeah. - I remember when we first started dating, everyone knew that I obviously liked him, because I wouldn't have been with a chicken farmer naturally. (LAUGHS) I'm actually quite scared of the chickens. - I'm not quite sure which is on and off. - You need your glasses. - (LAUGHS) - I knew he was on a journey. I'm more than happy to support him. And when you're a little bit scared of chickens, it's just a little bit hard to help fully, but I've always wanted an outside job. - Cool. - Yeah. - Emma's going to run some cattle on the farm at Halcombe. - We're going to strip this other one. - It's just quite nice to have my own passion and journey as well. - Emma's dad, John Poole, is here to help. Today they're installing electric fencing in the brand-new cattle yards. - All attached then, Em? - Yep, yep. This is the main feed for the whole farm, so, yeah, it's got to be done right. - I obviously grew up on a farm, but most of the time, I was just getting bossed around by old mate over there. (LAUGHS) It's very different actually taking control, making those decisions yourself. I've got a lot to learn, but there's lots of people that are willing to give you help if you're willing to listen. - Only down a couple of hundred. - (LAUGHS) - That's perfect. (EASY-GOING MUSIC) Halcombe poultry farmer Scott Jimmieson and soon-to-be-cattle farmer Emma Jamieson love running together. - Oh, so long. - Yeah. - We're gonna need to get some cattle soon. It's something we can do together that's not talking about eggs. - Yeah, it's like a there's a mental aspect to running that, you know, it's great for your mental health and some companionship as well. We are competitive within ourselves. - Yeah. One's trying to just take off a little bit fast, and the other one'll be going up the hill. - Before I was pregnant, it was a lot more competitive, but now very leisurely. Once baby's out, we'll definitely be going on a trail run... - Yeah. - ...exploring New Zealand that way. There's a few logs in there. - Yeah. - We have the local Halcombe Relay coming up in a couple of weeks, and we love that event. We've been doing it for the last few years ` community-based. We always sponsor eggs for prizes, and the race comes straight past our driveway. - The local community is really important to us. - Cos without our community, we wouldn't have any staff, we wouldn't be able to do what we do, so, yeah, we love our community. (CHICKENS CLUCK) - I've actually put you at leg three this year. So you've got a different leg than you've done before. - During the week, we don't get much of a chance to work together because we're obviously doing different things all the time. But each Saturday and Sunday, we typically come down and pick up some eggs. - Pick up your eggs, have a chat, go have a coffee, yeah, make a morning of it. Oh, it's pretty cruisy, yeah. Well, it'd good if we win our own eggs, but I'm sure we don't need to. (BOTH LAUGH) - This shed that we're currently in was my first big investment. When Emma came along, I think the second date, you actually came out here, didn't you? - Yeah. Scott showed me, like, how to pick up the eggs and the grader, and then, yeah, I had to break the news that, um, chickens weren't really my friend. (LAUGHS) - I know. Well, there's nothing more romantic than going inside a chicken shed. - Yeah. (LAUGHS) Yeah, um, he was a 32-year-old bachelor living with his parents Well, to be fair, we were on our first date, he told me that he was a lovely son because he let his elderly parents live with him. (LAUGHS) I knew Scott was going places. What he created before he met me was absolutely amazing, just needed some help fine-tuning and some organisation. - Emma and Scott's virtual farm shop, Local Food, sells not just Scott's eggs, but produce from other local farmers. - We've got our local honey and olive oil, and then walnuts and hazelnuts in season, which is great, and then spring's awesome because that means it's asparagus season. so, yeah, looking forward to spring. (ENGINE THRUMS) (RELAXING ACOUSTIC MUSIC) - By the time spring arrives, Emma is realised her dream of farming cattle here at Halcombe with her trusty cattle dog, Bonnie. - Good girl. (BONNIE YAPS) Bonnie, sit. Good girl. (BONNIE YAPS) - Bonnie's awesome. We thought we might need to put a huntaway in the farm budget, but nah, she's awesome. She gets the job done. She's a bit, um, wild on the commands, but we get there. It's been so exciting. We sort of started with 15, and then we got 30, and now we've got 65, so, um, I've been keeping really busy. Sit, Bonnie, sit! Good girl. Big learning curve just moving them on my own and making sure they've got enough grass. Good girls. (BONNIE YAPS) No bulls. They're just heifers and steers. I don't want anything too big to handle in the yards. Plus, we've obviously got another passenger on board that I've got to look after. (RELAXING ACOUSTIC MUSIC RESOLVES) (LAMBS BLEAT) - Spring also means asparagus, grown by a neighbouring dairy farmer. - They're so good. It's delivered within one to two days, and people love it We get lots of really good feedback from our customers, especially our chefs, Locally grown food's super important to me, just supporting the local community, our local farmers, um, and also, I just feel like it's really important that farmers and consumers actually have a relationship and to appreciate the amount of time and energy that goes into growing your food so that when you eat it, you actually appreciate what you're eating ` and making it accessible to everybody by going direct to market so then we can try and make it as cheap as we possibly can. - The poultry farm at Halcombe is between flocks at the moment, giving the free-range paddock time to recover, and giving Emma and Scott the chance to plant some native trees. - Lots of worms in there. - Yeah, there's lots of worms in there, eh? I'm very interested in regenerative agriculture practices, and I suppose I just wanna get to know more. Like, as I'm starting out, I'm learning. I'm open to lots of different ideas, and we've really got to get that soil right, so, yeah, it's quite important. Good hole there, Craig. - Oh, nice. So this is to help protect the birds from predators in the sky. Chickens like to feel safe when they come outside of the shelter. So the more trees we have outside, that means the more time they're going to have to free-range and live a good, comfortable life. - So this will stop the weeds, hopefully, coming up. They're quite scared and flighty animals, and we want them away from the shed a bit more. We want them to come down here, so we have to really entice them down here and give them something to hide under so they feel safe. (INDISTINCT CHATTER) - Just down the road from the home farm is the small village of Halcombe. Today, Scott and Emma, their friends and their staff member Luke are competing in the Halcombe Relay as Girls Gone Wild. - We're excited, eh, Luke? - Yeah, excited. - (LAUGHS) - Yeah, bit nervous, bit nervous. but we'll be right, yeah. - Luke's bringing it home, so I was like, 'Just get home and we'll be sweet.' - I've had about two weeks' training for running. Um, before that, I've pretty much never run before. I wouldn't say fit; I'd say just capable of running a 5K. - Emma is running for two. - Yeah. I'm good. It won't be any, um, PBs today, but, hey, I've just got to get to the finish line safely. - Five, four... - Kelly's starting the race for us. - ...two, one. (AIR HORN BLARES, CROWD CHEERS) - Leg two Luke's gonna do, Luke McBride. - Yeah, which is the other Luke. - And then he'll hand the baton to me, and I'll be cruising along at a nice, steady pace, hopefully, and I'll head in the baton to Emma. - Yeah. I'm pumped, ready, baby's ready. (LAUGHS) No, just gonna enjoy this one and take it easy and, yeah, just enjoy the sunshine. - Come on, Scottie! (ALL CHEER) Yoo-hoo! - If it wasn't these circumstances, I would definitely get caught up in the competition, but just got to look after myself and baby today. - Yeah, all good, we got there. My competitiveness just takes over me sometimes. I just have to go faster, and I'm regretting it now. (LAUGHS) (SPECTATORS APPLAUD, CHEER) - Oh, it's such a nice day, and, like, our families are here, Luke and the team and our friends; people in the community know who we are. It's just means a lot, and, um, we love it. - Oh. (LAUGHS) Well done. - That's good, man. ('COUNTRY CALENDAR' THEME) - Next time ` she's a mum of three running the farm. - Lucky, get in behind! It's been a pretty steep learning curve, but the buck stops at me now. - She's done a pretty good job with it, eh. - And she's building cosy homes for dogs. - We've got dogs with big hearts. I'd be pretty stuffed without them. - That's next time on Hyundai Country Calendar.