Mat and Kris went from "out on the street” to having their own business
During the recession of the 1990s, Mat and Kris Johnston lost their orchard jobs – and the house that came with their work. “We’d been working 14-hour days pruning kiwifruit and suddenly we were told we had three weeks to get out,” says Kris.
Undaunted, they set up their own business supplying services on contract to orchardists. They organise gangs to do kiwifruit pruning and other work.
- Mat Johnston takes a hands-on approach to running his business
Mat and Kris wanted to work together, and didn’t want work to dominate their lives. “One of my gauges of success is spending time with my family. I’m a real fan of not working Sundays. We now have full-time supervisors who are really good at what they do, so I leave a lot of work up to them,” says Mat.
However, he finds it important to spend time out in the field alongside his workers. “During the harvest season Kris and I work solidly. We are usually working from seven in the morning to seven at night, six days a week for 11 to 12 weeks.
“Owning the business, you can control to some degree the amount of work that you are doing, which is fantastic. If you are finding it tough to make ends meet, you can go out and do more work.”
However, the paperwork is relentless, taking up more than three days a week between the two of them. “The bookwork and compliance requirements are huge,” says Mat.
“Grower returns are an obstacle too – you can be the best contractor and still have the worst orchard because the grower hasn’t got enough money to spend on the orchard.
“But, there are some huge opportunities. It’s easy to be a contractor – but it’s not that easy to be a really good contractor. What I’m proud of is that we haven’t compromised ourselves, and growers do think of us as being good at what we do, which is really, really important to me.”
