Big things grow from little things…

Michelle & I went down to the Foodtech Packtech Trade Show at the ASB Showgrounds yesterday. This is a show where you can see all the big packing equipment, conveyer belts, flow wrap machines – most of them bigger than me! Wow, so many gidgets and gadgets for packing! It made me realise just how small our baby Kako brand really is (it’s OK, humans are small after only 2 years as well).

It was amazing just how expensive some of these machines were. At one stand, Michelle and I took “over & under” guesses on the cost of a small machine that automatically fills pouches. I guessed $22k, Michelle guessed $35k. It was $35k! OUCH! I lost the bet and have to make Michelle a cup of tea, but more importantly – $35k was the “entry level”. That’s a lot of money! So we moved onto flow wrap machines – these little beauties can foil our tablets (like supermarket branded chocolate bars), or any other product we need wrapped – the ‘entry level’ machine, which would dwarf our packing room, was…wait for it… $85,000. It can do 200 bars per minute though. Wow…moving along!  There were labelling machines which could label our products as they whizzed down a conveyer – made here in NZ it was, and only (yes only) $135k.

A wrapping machine like this only costs around $100k. *splutter*

It really hit home two things. When we grow to the size we plan (world domination for those who don’t know the master plan), we will be a very different company! We will have a lot of big packing machines etc. Combined with some of the automatic chocolate making equipment (eg, enrobers) and very quickly, it becomes apparent that a big Kako will look very different from a small Kako. (from a production point of view). Exciting though!! The second thing was simply that when we grow, we have to be very careful not to lose our ‘soul’, the essence of the Kako brand, that we have currently.  I have to say, seeing so many exhibitors selling so many big machines, makes me realise how many big food manufacturers there are … and if other companies can go from little to big, why not us! We certainly don’t lack the passion…

On an interesting side note,we would walk past many stands with big 6 figure price tag machines, be greeted politely by the salespeople, and then asked what type of business we were in and what machinery we used now. “Human Hands” is what we use, so we explain that we are a young company and we are just looking at options for when we grow into a big company. Many (the majority) simply turn off at that point – no instant reward or sale for them, so we become irrelevant.

Hmm. But one day we will be making thousands of chocolate bars for export and will need a wrapping machine. Big companies that have big machines were once little companies with little (or no) machines for packing. But this concept seemed to be lost on these salespeople, chasing after the here and now.

A couple of exhibitors on the other hand were excellent – even though a packing machine might be 2 years off for us, they were still happy to invest their time into explaining how it would work, what we would need, etc. Very helpful. We don’t plan on being little forever – we want to take our chocolate to the world! Not just want to, we will – we even have a plan (cunning look).

So my thought for today is to remember that most big things grow from small things (often just an idea). Some people lack vision, others get it. But understanding what we will look like when we grow up is a big eye opener. But oh so exciting.

That’s it for today, but I do have some very cool things to share with you over the next week or so that tie into our plans for world domination by chocolate…Stay tuned as they say…

Stu