Page 46 - Fiji Traveller Issue 1

peanut butter, a health certificate, and the barcodes and all of these
things were really out of our realm of knowledge. We didn’t know
anything about the [rules and regulations of starting a business]
having not worked in food production before. So, it was a really good
learning curve for us.”

Moving to Fiji
In March 2021, Pickering was made redundant from his airline job.
From difficulty came opportunity. The family decided to leave the
Bay of Plenty and return to Fiji.
“This is our chance, we could turn this negative thing into a positive,”
Pickering says. “We sold our house and wrapped up the business
in New Zealand and moved to Fiji. We arrived with our boys and
everything that we owned in a shipping container.”
The absence of tourists due to Covid-related border closures meant
Island Style had to look to a local customer base. “We thought we would
target the tourist market that was coming to Fiji. But as everybody
knows, around that time, the country went into a full lockdown. There
was nobody coming in and nobody going out. So that was really
“ difficult, because we were trying to start a brand new business here,
and trying to negotiate our way through all the necessary government
and council applications. That was a very challenging time. From that,
We didn’t know
we had to change our focus of who we were going to target because
anything about we weren’t getting any tourists anytime soon.”
Overcoming hurdles
the [rules and Island Style peanut butter is now working with 11 reputable stockists
regulations of including supermarkets, hotels and resorts around the country.
The brand produces three varieties, crunchy, smooth and a
starting a business] decadent chocolate peanut butter.
Production in Fiji started in November 2021, and Island Style’s
having not worked crunchy peanut butter is the company’s best seller.
“I now love the crunchy. Our boys still love the smooth,” Gary says.
in food production He suggests smothering their peanut butter along with Rewa butter
onto a thickly sliced long loaf for the perfect combination.
before. The company’s first stockist was Fresh Choice supermarket.
“We were really lucky to meet some really good people in the local
supermarket business in Fiji… Once all the compliance things were
done, we did a whole new rebranding with our label so it was a
completely different look from our New Zealand product and we were
really, really happy with how that’s going so far.
“We were really lucky to be approached by Jacks of Fiji. They’ve
been awesome to deal with. We’re lucky to have a really good
relationship with our partners here,” he says.
Pickering says the biggest challenge has been changing his “New
Zealand mindset”.
“I really had to adjust the way that I thought, and the way that I
saw things to be more in line with the way things are done here in
Fiji. You know, there’s many examples of setting up a business and
dealing with councils and different departments, where I would often
just scratch my head and sort of wonder, gosh, why are we doing it
this way?
“I just had to adjust how I looked at things and just follow the advice
that I was given. So I think that was probably our biggest challenge
coming here and still thinking in a New Zealand mindset, it just doesn’t
work. We’ve figured out that things done here are for a reason, and
you just have to just go with it. Keep smiling.”

46