New Zealand’s first homegrown muesli bar manufacturer, Tasti Products Limited is confident its newly refurbished $8 million premises will inspire additional products sure to make Kiwi and international taste buds zing.
“The new product development area has all the bells and whistles that will help staff dream up amazing new taste combinations, which we hope to eventually present to the market,” says Bryce Howard, Tasti’s Chief Executive.
Prime Minister John Key viewed the brand new kitchen and product development area at the official opening of the company’s new 20,000 square metres of manufacturing and office space on September 11.
From humble beginnings baking Snak Logs and fruit bars by hand in modified pizza ovens, Tasti is a success story of resourceful entrepreneurs keeping it Kiwi and selling their product to the world.
Part of Tasti’s success has been built on its ability to respond quickly to market opportunities with innovative and different products that are different from those produced by its multi-nationally owned competitors.
“Our smaller size coupled now with our state-of- the-art facilities mean we can be even quicker to market with unique new products that reflect local and international tastes,” Howard says.
The company has spent around $35 million over eight years buying the best German and Italian machines that produce muesli bars and says it now has the most modern equipment and some of the highest speed lines around, producing up to 2,000 muesli bars every minute of the day.
“We make approximately 10 million bars every week, wrap them, pack them, stack them onto pallets and ship them around Australasia and the world,” Howard says.
“If you put all the bars we produce every seven weeks end-to-end, there are enough to reach around the world. We are only two years away from making sufficient bars to go to the moon and with our new facilities, we believe this milestone may be achieved even sooner,” he added.
Tasti has been an iconic part of the New Zealand food manufacturing industry for 82 years and after 50 years in its current Te Atatu Peninsula location decided it was in need of an upgrade.
“The new office and work space is an exciting milestone for Tasti,” says Howard.“We have undergone a transformation in the past decade, from a company whose main products were essentially raw materials for the home baking market to an international manufacturer of added value products.
“The new facilities will help us reach our vision of double digit sales growth and further develop our export potential,” he says.
Photo: Tasti’s Development Technologist Candice Jacobs shows PM John Key various muesli and nut bar ingredients during a tour of the new product development area.
