Blackball Black Garlic taste success, now levelling up their culinary offering

Blackball Black Garlic cofounders, Sam Weston (left) and Wayne Hanright.

By day Sam Weston is a Joiner, but by night (and weekends) he, and his business partner Wayne Hanright, are producing award-winning Black Garlic. And along with a fresh batch of opportunities to grow the business, the pair are close to completing a new commercial kitchen, thanks to a grant from Development West Coast.

“I originally started Blackball Black Garlic with Wayne to earn some extra cash while renovating my house. My cousin in Australia was doing something similar, so I thought we could give it a go too,” explains Weston.

“We began small, however it soon became so popular that we had no choice but to expand what we were doing. And now here we are, about to open our new production factory, which will allow us to move to the next stage of our offering.”

Black garlic is produced by cooking raw garlic in a specialised incubator, for five weeks, where it goes through a number of processes that cause its colour to change. It also results in a complex group of flavours and has numerous health benefits, above and beyond normal, everyday garlic.

Weston credits early wins to the support of his small-town community in Blackball, on the South Island’s West Coast. It’s where he lives with his family – his joinery factory on one side and the black garlic kitchen on the other. And while it may sound like a strange combination, it seems he and Hanright have discovered the right ingredients for success.

But that’s not to say there weren’t a couple of hard learnings on the way to get black garlic into production and to where they are today. A lot of this was due to the difficulty in understanding the correct process of how to cook the garlic, as it’s a niche industry where most of the manufacturing elements are confidential.

“We had to figure out most of it as we went, because there’s no tutorials on YouTube or information online. It’s all very ‘secret squirrel’,” says Weston.

“At the start we were hand peeling garlic, sometimes till 1am every night of the week. We knew we had to streamline that element, as it definitely wasn’t an efficient use of our time. Now we’ve got it down to a day’s work and it’s done. But it was a real ‘number 8 wire’ mentality that got us to this point.”

Weston also recalls an electrical malfunction that caused the garlic to overcook, which wasn’t discovered until the end of the lengthy five-week cooking process. Thankfully the supplier (of which there are only two in New Zealand) was able to replace their stock and they were able to move on from the mishap. And it’s at the point where Weston and Hanright only have to remind themselves of the position Blackball Black Garlic finds itself in to know that the future of the business is red hot.

“We were lucky to get in when we did because there are only two commercial garlic growers in New Zealand. So one supplies us exclusively, and the other lot goes to someone else. That means the New Zealand garlic market is closed and it puts us in a really good spot.”

However world domination is off the radar – for now anyway. Weston says he and Hanright want to keep their operations on a more boutique scale, not in mainstream supermarkets. They already have a number of local stockists and restaurants, as well as selling direct to consumers online. And if there’s stock left over, they are happy to head to any nearby farmer’s markets.

Weston does have a few goals he’d like to achieve, with a dream of supplying to West Gold Butter very much front of mind. He also has a few ideas for some epic flavour combinations, which will be kept on the down-low for now.

So what has been the hardest part of taking Blackball Black Garlic from retrofitting an old fridge into an oven, to earning a silver medal in the 2022 New Zealand Artisan Awards?

“Administration and learning tax was probably the biggest one. We went on a business course which was helpful and day-to-day, Wayne and I share the load, playing to our strengths. I’m a pretty confident person and I haven’t had too many doubts along the way. Now we have a successful business that was built from nothing,” says Weston.

And his advice to someone thinking about becoming an entrepreneur?

“Just give it a go. Surround yourself with like-minded, positive people and don’t give up. I’d also say don’t sweat the small stuff, I think it can often come down to how you handle your stress.”

Story by Erin Harrison in partnership with Development West Coast (DWC).