“The only way we can grow is if we can export because the New Zealand market is too small and we need to get scale and size.
“Where we landed, we either build in the Far North or we relocate somewhere.
“We chose to relocate because there were more pros than cons.
“Auckland was the number one choice.”
Founded in 2022, The Kutai Guy is a family-run seafood business specialising in premium, hand-shelled, and traditionally fire-smoked mussels which are available online and via retailers and supermarkets nationwide.
It also delivers mussel spat [microscopic baby mussels that act as seeds] from Ninety Mile Beach to mussel farmers across the Coromandel, Marlborough Sounds, and Tasman Bay.
The business recently won gold for its Sweet Chilli Smoked Mussels for the third year running at the Outstanding Food Producers Awards, which celebrate New Zealand’s finest food and non-alcoholic drink producers.
Reichardt said his four fulltime staff and six part-timers were given the option of relocating to Auckland with him.
However, they didn’t want to leave the Far North and are now looking for other employment, he said.
Reichardt said he was going to Australia next month to meet a distributor then on to China to “the biggest seafood expo in the world” where he will showcase his products at a friend’s stand.
“Everything is moving along, we just need to find a place and set up a new home.”
Reichardt, who has lived in the Far North since he was 8, said he’ll keep his house and 4ha property and “will still be home a lot”.
He would travel back to the Far North during mussel spat season from June to November, he said.
“It’s not like I’m leaving forever, it’s just to grow this side of the business; it has to happen.
“It’s progress, you have to do hard stuff to get ahead.”
Reichardt said he hopes to find a 400-800sq m factory with enough power to run his operation.
He asked that if anyone had a suitable property, “to sing out”.
Jenny Ling is a senior journalist at the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering human interest stories, along with finance, roading, and social issues.