Article published in Good Magazine, September 2022

In the last few years there has been an increase in the awareness of the native plants of Aotearoa, New Zealand and the medicine that they hold. They are being found in herbal medicine and natural therapies practiced, as well as in an increasing number of natural products.

I remember when we first started our business ŌKU New Zealand over 10 years ago at the Tauranga Farmers Market. It was very much an educational process for our customers who mostly had not encountered these plants before or certainly did not identify them as having any medicinal benefit. Most people today have at least heard of kawakawa and understand that it’s good for them.

After returning from the recent Australian Trade Mission I realised there is a very strong movement both here and in Australia towards sustainable and indigenous businesses. ŌKU products were selected for the David Jones ‘Discover New’ promotion held at their flagship store in Sydney because of ŌKU’s practices. The two work in harmony together as indigenous philosophies are about putting people and the planet before profits. At ŌKU we have a set of ethical practices that incorporates every aspect of how our business is run, this includes the harvesting and growing of our native plants. We are conscious of how we treat the planet and want to give back to Papatūānuku more than we take. We place a special emphasis around our compostable, recyclable and plastic free packaging. These business practices are based on traditional rongoā practices and are what is needed now more than ever to reduce the damage of climate change and to help us reduce our footprint and tread a little gentler on our whenua.

We are far from where we want to be though and see there is still a long way to go to acheive the positive impact we want to make and truly be the force of change we seek to be. Sustainablility has become quite a buzzword of late and the messaging has become confused with what it truly means. There is a lot of greenwashing happening in the marketplace and so in aid of continuing to show we are walking the talk and not just all talk we are in the process of obtaining a BCorp Certification. This is a high bar and one that as I write this, only a handful of other NZ companies have been able to achieve. We are also always on the lookout on how we can do things better and collaborate with other companies who share the same kaupapa to be part of the change for good.

Let us know how you think we are doing or what we could do better, we always love to hear from you. Leave some feedback below or drop us an email on info@oku.co.nz

Thanks as always for you ka pai support, without you we simply couldn’t do be doing any of this.

Helen Paul-Smith
Co-Founder of ŌKU NZ