Grochem
Licensee 2925
Grochem has been manufacturing in Sunlight Grove, Porirua since 1993. Their initial development was based in liquid and powder foliar fertilisers and high-quality fertigation for cut flowers and horticulture in general. Now, they are the leading supplier of innovative, sustainable options for growers including plant nutrition, insecticides, fungicides and plant growth regulators.
Their business continues to grow rapidly driven by the needs of the Horticultural industry in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. Working with innovative independent scientists and researchers to develop products that are effective while being more environmentally sustainable. In turn, helping the industry meet the challenging demands of consumers and enabling crops to be grown more sustainably.
Grochem has been certified on the inputs for the organic programme with BioGro for almost 17 years after listening to the strong demand of their customers looking to achieve organic market access overseas.
Certification with BioGro stood out for Grochem, based on the International Market Access offering that their customers are looking for and the recognition of the brand across their array of customers and New Zealand in general.
The process of certification was much more straightforward than first anticipated by Grochem. Great support and approachability were offered by the BioGro team to not only get the certification finalised - but ongoing support and communication when new products are developed and when challenges have arisen over the years.
"The ability to discuss requirements for certification of an input prior to application or even development assists us greatly with our decision-making process"
"Changes to market access requirements are always an issue for input products. Clarity, prior warning and the ability to define which export markets have been very useful"
For Grochem, organic certified customers and therefore products are a small percentage of their total agrichemical business. However, the move in mainstream agriculture to nil detectable residues, pressure for deregistration of products and increased pressure on traditional synthetic chemistry sees more frequency in considering organic alternatives.
As a business, they also strive to hold themselves to high ethical standards in supporting RHANZ, Agrecovery and the UNICEF clean water program to their everyday goals of seeking better and safer products.
"Certification has been an outward reflection of this to our customers."
Grochem continues to be a rapidly growing and successful New Zealand business, one of the last privately owned and operated manufacturers of agrichemicals in New Zealand. With their success, they have received the Deloitte Fast 50 fastness Agribusiness and Supplier awards from their merchants
"BioGro certification is a component of this success."