BLUE BERRIES ROSY FUTURE

Many readers will be familiar with the carrots, potatoes, onions and other vegetables sold under Scott and Vicki’s True Earth brand. Now, with the decision to reduce their operation from a variety of broadacre annual crops, blueberries will be the sole offering from True Earth.

“We either got bigger or got out,” Scott says. “We compromised, got smaller, and stayed in. That has allowed us to remain involved in quality food production. Permanent crop production is easier to manage than vegetables in scale. We own less land and relinquished the role of kaitiaki over the land to local mana whenua, which was something we took very seriously.”

GROWING IS IN THE GENES

Vicki and Scott have known each other for most of their lives, having both been brought up on Hawke’s Bay orchards. They share a passion for growing high quality fresh food