Approved Product Provider Partner Program

The recent OIC approval of the sale of Te Awamutu based Manuka Health Ltd to Malaysian based Hong Leong banking conglomerate for over $200M sends a clear and present danger warning signal to all Maori with beneficial ownership interests in natural resource taonga rich whenua. Maori owned lands that the new Malaysian owners must retain access to in order to make a profit on this big investment in Maori Taonga asset extraction. Exactly the same story as also applies to East Coast based New Zealand Manuka Ltd and its Hong Kong owners. If Aotearoa/NZ owned and controlled commercial institutions do not take steps to financially support locally owned and operated SME natural health, wellness and skin care consumer product manufacturers to secure long term access to customary and traditional  natural resource taonga and its future wealth generation, extraction ownership rights will be lost to your next generation because of increasingly omnipotent foreign ownership of natural resource taonga extraction and its profit stream. The direct and negative impact of this will be to further deprive local entrepreneurs from the opportunity to participate in or conduct business in the health, wellness and rongoa sectors of the economy as local participation is replaced by foreign ownership. A transition of traditional assets to the detriment of customary ownership of historical whakapapa with Maori rights to the cultural ownership and the economic benefits attaching thereto being the big loser. 

Keeping native plant oil production locally owned controlled.

Everyone knows that nearly all oils extracted from native plants in Aotearoa/NZ comes from resource taonga growing on Maori owned whenua. What most people do not know is that this oil (and honey) extraction activity is now dominated by foreign owned companies who are increasingly securing pricing control over this unique taonga. Control that will be increasingly detrimental to the interests of local SME's whose businesses are dependent on access to this taonga as part of their customary native use marketing korero. Already foreign owned companies in this customary health and wellness space are using traditional Maori customs to support the sale of their products. This is wrong and an insult to Tikanga.

Only  NZ owned & controlled investment capital can stop this trend!

Fortunately, there are two readily available local solutions available to arrest this trend on a macro basis. The first is the Governments Provincial Growth Fund. The second are the cashed-up Maori (both Iwi and non Iwi) owned and controlled Corporations and Trusts whose mandate is to follow the protocols of kaitiakitanga to ensure passing of ownership of resource taonga and its economic benefits to the next generation of their whanau, not a foreign whanau dynasty.

The more you show to the market, the more you sell into the market!

This Maoritanga themed health & wellness consumer products retail project in Florida is open to all NZ owned and operated SME's that manufacture products in this sector that have a demonstrable and verifiable whakapapa to the unique natural resource taonga of Aotearoa/NZ that is not found anywhere else in the world. Products that have been traditionally used by the native peoples of Aotearoa/NZ in accordance with customs handed on from one generation to the next in accordance with the principle of kaitiakitanga and tikanga protocols. Products manufactured by qualifying SME's whose sales and marketing korero fairly and truthfully reflects this globally unique whakapapa of customary natural health and wellness in a way that no direct therapeutic health benefit claim is made in any brochures and product labels. To all qualifying SME's, the 177 East team looks forward to working with you to commence your USA export sales and marketing journey. Linda looks forward to starting this korero with you.