After selling 56,000 lettuces and 75,000kg of bagged leaves in 2.5 years, two couples who revived a small town hydroponic farm in South Taranaki are moving on.
Salad Brothers in Waverley was restarted in 2023 by Chris Carrick and Marianne Archibald with her brother Garth Archibald and his wife, Kristine Bell. The 1ha lettuce farm was set up in 1986, but had become run-down and was not operating when they bought it.
Since then, they had invested more than $500,000 in improvements, including a climate-controlled greenhouse, automated irrigation, and a new three-phase power system. The massive upgrade and fast learning curve for the two couples had seen the business blossom, but for personal reasons they had decided to sell up, Marianne said.
"We're going our separate ways so we have to sell even though it's going really well. We are disappointed at letting it go at this stage, but we all have our other things to do," she said. "We are really proud of what we have created here, its just so crispy and so good."
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