Hawthorne Coffee Roastery
Monday to Friday. Founded in 1999 and owned by Tom and Benita Ormond since around 2010, Hawthorne roasts 100% Arabica beans from around the world into five award-winning blends, from the rich, dark Hawthorne blend to the light, fragrant Te Mata blend. Hawthorne was the first to use keg milk from Origin Earth in 20 litre containers, which keeps thousands of single-use bottles out of landfill. The scones are famous, and Tom also co-founded Giant Brewing, whose Giant White Stout carries Hawthorne beans. A note for visitors: a New Zealand flat white is a double shot.
Bellatino's Food Lovers Market
Saturday. Bellatino's opened in 2019 to make excellent local producers accessible more than once a week, and now runs three stores. The kitchen makes treats daily, and its own black raspberry and tamarillo vinaigrettes have a loyal following. The shelves showcase St Andrews Limes, Telegraph Hill olives, Bay Berries, Maud and Harry's walnuts, Hōhepa cheese, preserves from Maison Therese and The Goodness Garden, and olive oils from Aquiferra and The Village Press.
Arataki Honey
Monday to Saturday. Arataki began when 17-year-old Percy Berry helped a neighbour remove a swarm of bees. He moved to Hawke's Bay in 1942, and in 1944 bought nine acres on Arataki Road and, with his son Ian, registered 131 hives. Ian designed the logo, still in use, as a schoolboy. Today the fourth generation runs three sites, 26,000 hives and about 1.5 billion bees, producing over 1,000 tonnes a year as New Zealand's largest commercial beekeeper. Manuka was once almost impossible to give away, until Dr Peter Molan at the University of Waikato identified its unique non-peroxide antibacterial activity in the early 1980s. Arataki now produces manuka up to UMF 18. Solar panels line the roofs, the honey is processed at around hive temperature, about 32°C, the packaging is cardboard, and you can fill your own. You taste in the public tasting room, hosted by the Arataki team where available, and explore the education centre.
Te Mata Figs
Every day. Helen and Murray Douglas discovered fresh figs in an Italian neighbourhood of Sydney, where Murray was a council chief executive. In 2008 they left corporate life and began with 300 trees and a set of golf clubs. Today there are thousands of trees, 23 varieties on a former cherry and nectarine orchard, and no golf clubs, and they are New Zealand's biggest fig producer. On the orchard tour you learn that a fig is an inverted flower, with hundreds of tiny flowers inside, and that New Zealand figs self-pollinate with no fig wasp. The orchard is organic and spray free, the café is 100% gluten free and the fig ice creams are dairy free.
Birdwoods
Every day. Owner Louise Stobart comes from a third-generation Zimbabwean farming family. She began making metal birds from recycled oil drums on the family farm in Zimbabwe, and emigrated to New Zealand in 2004. The gallery sits in the 1894 St Peter's church hall, moved from Waipawa, and the sweet shop in a Victorian cottage. Almost everything for sale comes from a maker the Birdwoods team has met, and Louise travels back to Africa most years for textiles, art and sculpture. Afternoon tea is a specialty table set in the conservatory, with cake of the kitchen's choosing and tea, white linen, flowers and premium service. Afterwards you take bird feed out to the ostriches, wander the sculpture garden and visit the old-fashioned sweet shop.
Bay Blue
Friday to Sunday, November to Easter. Bay Blue is the Hirst family's boutique berry orchard. Marian Hirst grew up on a Havelock North orchard, lived in America, returned in the early 1990s and planted blueberries in 2005. The family grows New Zealand-bred varieties under net cages and tunnel houses, and holds the Supreme award for the East Coast region from the New Zealand Farm Environment Trust. At the Market Shed, 387 Te Mata Mangateretere Road, Te Mata, you finish with real fruit ice cream and fresh berries, with conserves and syrups on the shelves.
The Strawberry Patch
At other times. The Strawberry Patch in Havelock North began around 2007 as a little red shed selling strawberries and ice cream. It now trades year round with fruit, vegetables and local epicurean products. Strawberry season runs from October to May, the fruit goes from field to table in a day, and pick your own opens when the crops allow. You finish with real fruit ice cream and a tasting of whatever fruit is ripe. Fittingly, New Zealanders eat more ice cream per person than any other country, about 28 litres a year.
Hōhepa Hawke's Bay
Tuesday and Thursday, by arrangement. Discover Hōhepa Hawke's Bay, a not-for-profit organisation supporting people with intellectual disabilities to live life to the fullest. Guests can explore the biodynamic farm and gardens, visit the dairy and craft studios, and finish with a tasting of Hōhepa's award-winning organic cheeses, while learning how sustainability, meaningful work and community connection make a lasting difference in people's lives. The visit is hosted by Hōhepa's own team at the Clive farm, and each guest leaves with a hand-poured Hōhepa candle. Hōhepa is also the partner through which we offset our carbon footprint, funding native plants from its nursery in Clive.
Hawke's Bay Farmers' Market
Sunday. On Sunday mornings the producers come to town. At the Hastings Showgrounds you meet stallholders such as Te Mata Figs, St Andrews Limes, Hōhepa, Aquiferra and Maud and Harry's. Aquiferra grows 650 olive trees in the Ngatarawa triangle, and its refill service has saved thousands of bottles. Maud and Harry's began in 2011 with the walnuts from a driveway tree, and walnut brittle came first. Coffee in hand, you taste as you go, and a brunch item from the stalls is on us.
