NZBusiness August 2020

A short collection of Covid-crushing insights to help businesses navigate the ‘new normal’. When you consider how this insidious virus has wreaked havoc on the economy, and how New Zealand’s diverse SME community has generally responded, you can’t help but be inspired.  We’re smart, we’re inventive, we’re gutsy in this part of the world. There were, and will be more, business casualties, but they’ll be outnumbered by the survivors and successes – businesses that have embraced new thinking, new technologies, and alternative revenue streams. “Pivoting” became the new buzzword during, and after, lockdown. We’ve all read about the companies that reinvented production lines to make hand sanitsers or face masks; the tour operator that delivered food parcels; the retailers whose

Forty Thieves owners Brent and Shyr Godfrey successfully steered their business through the pandemic storm and are now planning for a brighter future with new markets and new products. On the day Jacinda Ardern announced New Zealand’s nationwide lockdown numerous customer emails suddenly appeared in Shyr Godfrey’s inbox, including one from Foodstuffs, all stating their expectations for ongoing product supply. “That was both fortunate and frightening,” she recalls, “because we didn’t know what the future would bring.”  Luckily the nut-based products produced by Forty Thieves, the Hibiscus Coast-based company that she started with husband Brent in 2016, are regarded as essential food items.  Rather than facing declining sales, as many businesses did amongst all the panic-buying for staples, Shyr says