Kaipara Kumara

The Kaipara Kumara office and packhouse is situated in Ruawai, a small rural community next to the Kaipara Harbour, about 160kms north of Auckland, New Zealand. The flat alluvial plains, the soil structure and warm sub-tropical weather conditions unique to the region are ideally suited to growing high quality red, orange and gold kumara (known outside New Zealand as sweet potatoes).

The kumara has a long history of cultivation in New Zealand. Brought here by the early Maori settlers over one thousand years ago from Pacific Islands, they were widely grown especially in the semi-tropical regions of the North Island.

The Maori managed kumara growing with great horticultural skill, making use of the ideal growing climate and controlling kumara caterpillar with the use of tamed black-backed seagulls. Kumara caterpillar could devastate a crop almost overnight, hatching in their thousands. Pre-European Maori grew several different varieties of 'bush' kumara, but comp