Potatoes New Zealand is profiling some of the amazing young people in the horticulture industry to demonstrate the diverse opportunities available and to encourage more people into this great sector.
Campbell Buchanan grew up 10 minutes out of Palmerston North on a lifestyle block on Jackeytown Road – where the rocket is located. During his time in high school, Campbell and his sister, Georgia reared spring calves, which was a good income earner in his early years.
During the school holidays he would work at Gropak, which is the family business. He says that he learnt a lot of skills at Gropak such as forklift driving, machine operating, data entry and a little touch of the sales side, which he had tried to stay away from.
Campbell’s family includes his father and mother, Alan and Andrea Buchanan and sister, Georgia. He was fortunate enough to have Grandparents living close through all his life, which has been a benefit for learning and sharing ideas.
Growing up he really enjoyed playing a lot of sports and played a lot of backyard rugby as well as cricket with friends after school.
He went to Massey University, where he studied Business, majoring in Business Information Systems and Accounting where he graduated in 2016.
Before his current role at Gropak, Campbell was at T&G Global and was a part of their Data and Analytics team for 4 years.
Campbell’s role at Gropak is in Business Development and any other tasks that come his way. He works on getting new business and seeking to continuously improve business systems every day.
He says that he didn’t really have any intentions of rejoining the family business until 2016, where he and Andrea attended Berlin’s Fruit Logistica event. It was there, that he discovered that there is a lot of potential in the produce industry. Campbell had 6 months spare as he finished University mid-way through 2016 and had connected with Richard Gorman from Kalfresh. Richard was very generous and allowed Campbell to work at Kalfresh for a few months, where he learnt a range of skills and met some great people who he is still in contact with today.
After COVID, Campbell had an itch to come back to the family business and he really wanted to promote Gropak’s prepared vegetable range such as carrot sticks, etc. Campbell had learnt great skills at T&G being a part of their graduate program, which he could utilise at Gropak and he says those skills are still being used at Gropak today.
Campbell’s favourite part of his role is seeing all the work involved in projects through to the results. From starting with a new idea to strategic planning, then to grower interaction, as well as packhouse and processing room systems. They are all working their magic to ensure customers enjoy great products and services – creating long term value for everyone involved.
What Campbell enjoys the most about the potato/horticulture industry is the lifetime relationships. He says that most of the people he has met are very happy to help and support you, if you need assistance.
He also says there is a good opportunity to bring skills and knowledge learnt elsewhere and to implement it into the industry to innovate and progress the industry.
During his free time, you will find Campbell at the local café most Saturday mornings. He enjoys spending time with friends and watches a lot of sport over the weekends, such as cricket, rugby, Formula 1, the odd NFL game, if the time zone suits. Plus, he is also known to binge watch a lot of great TV shows.
Campbell says that he is slowly getting into mountain biking, however he does need to do more.
In terms of challenges, he tries to persevere in what he does as there is always challenges. If that’s following up with potential new customer leads, which he does get through to them first go, then he keeps trying. Gropak’s team works off the idea that they continue to do a good job every day and the opportunities will come.
Campbell is really proud of what Gropak has achieved in Sunlite Low Carb space, he says that they battled with supply constraints to begin with and ran into a lot of issues, however now it is starting to come into its own.
He is also proud of getting business into the School Lunch program for their carrot sticks. This was a very new venture for Gropak and they managed to break into the market with quality products. Campbell was very pleased when the first order was completed, as it showed what was possible and the volume they could put through the processing plant.
Campbell’s goals for the next five years include he would like to export some of Gropak’s products as well as working on a strategy on how they can export and make it viable. He would also like to focus on a few hobbies outside of work, he said he has a few ideas, and he will see how they go. So we can all watch this space…