More space for oyster fans at this year's festival
Lindsay Beer. PHOTO: NINA TAPU
It will be a full floor when the Bluff Oyster & Food Festival takes place today.
The festival returned last year — the first time since 2021 — after a break of a few years because of Covid and health and safety issues.
But today's festival will be bigger and better, as the entire space originally planned for the festival will be available for the first time.
The trust bought the rundown Club Hotel, a Category 2 heritage building, and the land in 2014.
However, there were health and safety concerns associated with the hotel on the festival site.
The trust then attempted to sell it but failed to attract a buyer, so it applied to the Invercargill City Council in 2019 for resource consent to demolish the building.
The festival organisers finally gained consent to demolish the old hotel building in January last year after a previous attempt.
A year on from the demolition, there is another 800sq m of floor being used and it will give the sold-out crowd plenty of room to roam.
Bluff promotions officer Lindsay Beer said more space would be great for those attending.
Tickets for the event had sold out weeks ago and 4000 punters would be rolling up to enjoy the food and refreshments on offer.
About 60% of the people who attend come from outside Southland. A plane of 180 grab-a-seat passengers is flying into Invercargill from Auckland this morning and they are set to head back to Auckland later today.
Mr Beer said people from all round the world turned up for the day.
The weather in Bluff had been a bit rough earlier this week but a decent day was forecast for today.
Mr Beer confirmed the oysters arrived yesterday and were all set to be eaten by the masses today.
One of the highlights of the day are the races, which involve professional oyster openers racing each other with events for men, women, novices, factory relay teams and a blindfold race.
Xavier Fife, of Calders Oysters, won the Men's Open last year, opening 50 oysters in a time of 3min 9sec. Mr Fife is back to defend the title this year while a two-time champion, Ricci Grant, is confirmed to be in the field as well.
Vic Pearsey had won 10 titles in a row in the Women's Open before standing aside last year when Peg Bishop took over the mantle getting through 50 oysters in 3min 34sec. Ms Bishop is not competing this year, so the title race is wide open.
Team Barnes won the Factory Relay race in 2024 but face tough competition this year from a Calders Oysters team of previous men's champions.
After the openers have demonstrated their skills, volunteers from the crowd are invited on stage to find the fastest competitor to down a dozen of Bluff's finest.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NZ Herald
12 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Small Business: Giftbox Boutique's journey from garage start-up to pandemic success
We started back in 2016 in a garage, so the quintessential New Zealand business story. When we started out gift baskets were very old fashioned. I felt like there was an opportunity for something that could be much more premium. We also recognised the shift that was starting to happen between traditional bricks and mortar and online shopping. My background is in marketing, and my husband's is in sales and digital marketing, so we had a good skill set and understanding of what it takes to launch a business online. We jumped into the deep end, quit our jobs, and much to our surprise, as much as anyone else's to be honest, the business has just grown from there. Giftbox Boutique operated out of co-founder Katie Gray's mum's garage, stacking orders to the ceiling until it had to find a bigger space. How do you choose what goes into each box? We have about 150 different gift boxes to choose from which contain a selection of upwards of 200 local New Zealand products, everything from wine and craft beer to home fragrances and homewares. We're lucky now we're the size we are, we get approached daily with companies that are wanting us to put their products in our boxes. And so we are quite strict in terms of what criteria we work with. The first thing for us is we're an online store, so our customers can't touch, feel, or smell the product, so it has to look amazing to begin with because they're shopping with their eyes. Secondly, the product has to be high quality and taste amazing. Thirdly, we also like to partner with New Zealand suppliers where possible. Our preference is typically for products that aren't stocked in a supermarket. For things that feel a little bit more premium, we like to try and partner with some small New Zealand producers, because that's also a nice way for us to be able to help support other small businesses to help them get their brands out to customers. How was the Covid-19 pandemic for the business? Covid was a very interesting time for us. We were coming off the back of really strong growth and then retail shut down. I always explain it that it was like adding fuel to a fire, we just went ballistic. We were lucky that we were still able to operate with a skeleton crew, because at the start things were very unknown, and we were all trying to work out how to work safely, but to still be able to help our customers. Demand just went absolutely crazy, I think we had something like 200%-300% growth during those Covid times. Growth brings with it its own sets of challenges. One of the things that's always been really important and an absolute non-negotiable for us is product quality. So for us, whether it's one gift box or 1000 gift boxes going out the door, I want them to look equally amazing. So it was about managing the volume of sales to make sure that output quality didn't decline in any way, because that's our brand and our business, and I want every customer that receives a boutique gift box to have an amazing experience. Katie and Andy Gray, co-founders of Giftbox Boutique, started the business after spotting a gap in the premium gift box market. What would be your advice to a budding entrepreneur wanting to start a business? My biggest piece of advice would be to trust your instincts and just give it a go. I think it's easy to doubt yourself and to spend too long polishing something before getting it out there. One of the big things, especially with online marketing, is people talk about minimum viable product in terms of getting something live and testing it to see what the feedback is. If you spend too long in your planning phase, you'll never feel ready. There will come a time when you just have to leap, because things won't be 100% perfect. Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.
Scoop
a day ago
- Scoop
Money In Transaction Accounts Costing New Zealanders Billions
Article – RNZ New Zealanders could be leaving their share of more than $1b a year on the table by keeping their cash in transaction accounts. , Money Correspondent New Zealanders may be leaving money on the table by keeping their cash in transaction accounts. David Cunningham, chief executive of mortgage broking firm Squirrel, said there was significantly more money in transaction accounts now than before Covid. Most banks do not pay interest on transaction accounts. Cunningham said transaction account balances had peaked at $53 billion when interest rates were close to zero, and people could see little reason to change. It had fallen to a recent low of $37b but had now lifted again to $39b. 'Almost all of this earns 0 percent [interest].' If that money was shifted into an account paying 3 percent, it would give savers just under $1.2 billion in interest a year. Cunningham said before Covid hit, there was about $28 billion in transaction accounts. 'You're always going to need some float in your transaction accounts but a lot of this is lazy money.' He said it was customer inertia that also delivered higher profits to the banks, because they could make money from the cash sitting in the accounts. But he said banks should be encouraging customers to check that they had their money in the right accounts. 'Every time you log in they could remind you that you've got say $20,000 in a transaction account earning nothing and if you moved it to savings you could earn x… that would be a way to make sure people were better off,' Cunningham said. Claire Matthews, a banking expert from Massey University, said some people kept their money in transaction accounts because of the ease of access. 'They may have concerns about fees to access it if it's in a savings account. Partly I think it's because they don't think the interest will be worth it – but they may not have actually looked at the numbers, because depending on the amount it may be very worthwhile over time. Partly, however, it is probably just not getting around to doing it.' Banks have been cutting rates for term deposits and some savings this week, after the official cash rate reduction. Westpac said on Thursday it was cutting the rate offered on a number of term deposits by 10 basis points. ASB said it was cutting the rate offered on its Savings On Call, ASB Cash Fund, Savings Plus and Headstart accounts by 20 basis points. That took the Headstart rate to 2.7 percent.
Scoop
a day ago
- Scoop
Money In Transaction Accounts Costing New Zealanders Billions
, Money Correspondent New Zealanders may be leaving money on the table by keeping their cash in transaction accounts. David Cunningham, chief executive of mortgage broking firm Squirrel, said there was significantly more money in transaction accounts now than before Covid. Most banks do not pay interest on transaction accounts. Cunningham said transaction account balances had peaked at $53 billion when interest rates were close to zero, and people could see little reason to change. It had fallen to a recent low of $37b but had now lifted again to $39b. "Almost all of this earns 0 percent [interest]." If that money was shifted into an account paying 3 percent, it would give savers just under $1.2 billion in interest a year. Cunningham said before Covid hit, there was about $28 billion in transaction accounts. "You're always going to need some float in your transaction accounts but a lot of this is lazy money." He said it was customer inertia that also delivered higher profits to the banks, because they could make money from the cash sitting in the accounts. But he said banks should be encouraging customers to check that they had their money in the right accounts. "Every time you log in they could remind you that you've got say $20,000 in a transaction account earning nothing and if you moved it to savings you could earn x… that would be a way to make sure people were better off," Cunningham said. Claire Matthews, a banking expert from Massey University, said some people kept their money in transaction accounts because of the ease of access. "They may have concerns about fees to access it if it's in a savings account. Partly I think it's because they don't think the interest will be worth it - but they may not have actually looked at the numbers, because depending on the amount it may be very worthwhile over time. Partly, however, it is probably just not getting around to doing it." Banks have been cutting rates for term deposits and some savings this week, after the official cash rate reduction. Westpac said on Thursday it was cutting the rate offered on a number of term deposits by 10 basis points. ASB said it was cutting the rate offered on its Savings On Call, ASB Cash Fund, Savings Plus and Headstart accounts by 20 basis points. That took the Headstart rate to 2.7 percent.
