Success in Soup
Tantalising, wholesome cooking smells lead through industrial Mairangi Bay on Auckland’s North shore to Pitango’s door. Here, deep in the ‘burbs, 40 people in white overalls and hair-capturing hats tend steaming soups in 10 waist-high 120-litre pots. There’s a red pot (tomato and thyme), an orange pot (carrot, chili and coriander) and a tawny gold pot (corn and chicken chowder).
In another corner of the industrial kitchen women wash tubs crammed with peeled pumpkin, sauté finely chopped onion in huge fry pans and slice resh seafood for gumbo.
A machine feeds exactly 600 grams – two servigs – of scalding-hot soup from a stainless-steel vat into self-standing plastic packs which are heat-sealed and put into a room-size walk-in refrigerator. When they reach minus 3? C they’re boxed in dozens and, as today’s destination is Australia, they’re loaded into a super-sized refrigerated shipping container just outside the roller door. When full, it’s off to the wharf and thence across the Tasman, where 30,000 packets of soup (RRP $5 to $6) will be on the shelves in Coles supermarkets in 10 days.
Pitango – the name of a cherry-like, bittersweet Middle Eastern fruit – sells 11 varieties of fresh organic soup and five of hummus and lentil dips. The business is the brainchild of one-time dancer Yasmin Shenhav and her chef husband Ofer, both 36, who came to New Zealand from Israel in 1998 with just the backpacks on their backs.
It wasn’t Yasmin’s first time here. She was born in Auckland while her Israeli parents were on a working holiday here, and left aged five months. She grew up on a kibbutz in northern Israel and studied dance, but “dreamed as far back as I can remember” of returning one day.
Yasmin and Ofer’s villages were not far apart in northern Israel, but they first met when she was studying dance in Jerusalem and he was cooking in Tel Aviv, working his way into Lilit, one the city’s finest restaurants. They married in 1996, when she won a scholarship to do an MA at London University, and he scored a job at the The Gate, London’s top vegetarian restaurant.
Yasmin had the opportunity to carry on and do a PhD but her dream of New Zealand couldn’t wait, so the couple dusted off their backpacks and traveled through Asia, where Ofer’s culinary nose was on high alert for new tastes and textures.
The son of Romanian Holocaust survivors, he’d grown up with a father who worked in a factory but in a home where “food was everything. We loved going to the fields picking tomatoes and olives. My father can talk for hours about food, and can make a long story from something like a special marinade for fish.”
Ofer says his chef’s diploma is nothing but technical training. “Cooking is about passion, artistry with food and, for me, constantly challenging myself to make something better and different.”
The Shenhavs adored Auckland on arrival but for two years stuggled with temporary jobs – teaching dance and cooking in restaurants – until they settled on the idea of making fresh organic soups. “There are so many delicious organic products here and we saw that market gap,” Yasmin explains. “We also had our first child, which nudged us into a deeper level of interest in healthy food.”
The couple tried all the supermarket soups and “knew we could do better by being different and organic. We bough a refrigerated truck, Ofer cooked soup all afternoon, it chilled through the night and he delivered it early to supermarkets before they opened.”
By 2002, their second Pitango year, a range of two soups had increased to four. In the third year most New Zealand supermarkets stocked Pitango and they began exporting to Australia (now 60 per cent of their business). The company turned over $3.4 million last year and expects double that this year after a frantic winter season.
The administration, distribution and logistics – getting fresh products to Asia and Australia in perfect condition – are challenging but the couple relish the challenge. Yasmin focuses on marketing and new export destinations, while Ofer oversees production and new products.
Now with two sons – Nir, six and Roee, three – 45 staff and spiraling orders, the Shenhavs seem amazed at the whirlwind they’ve created. They live close to work, in an Albany house with bush and sea views, and relish the hectic lifestyle. Says Yasmin, “Right now every day counts and we’re working hard to keep this brand growing.”
And she’s more than happy that her childhood dream of living in New Zealand has coloured up beautifully.
Reprinted with kind permission from North & South