Executive Summary: Utakura Harakeke Pilot

Summary of Project and Key Findings:
The result of this work provides a resource to support the first critical steps in the development of a harakeke-based micro-enterprise in the Utakura Valley, addressing the current gap between culturally aligned, whenua-based harakeke supply and the lack of locally controlled, economically sized processing options (i.e. the current default is to move low-value, bulky leaf material off site).

Key recommendations for Utakura7 include:

• Invest first in people and capability. Prioritise training, safe operating practice, and hands-on learning around fibre stripping and handling.
• Establish long scutched fibre as the anchor product for the micro-enterprise. Scutched fibre is the most technically mature stream. Long scutched fibre is a convenient way to set targets and measure productivity while looking for value-add in other products.
• Reduce harvesting cost. With feedstock over 70% of cash costs identified in the TEA, even modest harvesting-productivity gains outweigh any other single improvement.
• Capture by-products at the point of stripping. Gel and green matter are only economically recoverable during stripping. Green matter has an immediate local use as stock-feed supplement; gel should be trialled toward local purification and formulation.
• Validate gel and oil markets before relying on them. Because so much modelled upside rests on these two streams, test achievable prices and volumes before treating them as revenue.

Most importantly, we believe the value of this project lies less in the financial performance than in the transformation capability itself: containerised manufacturing provides an accessible entry point into local participation, innovation and shared knowledge, offering an opportunity to build an industry in which the community participates fully rather than at the margins.