After just two years in business, Sam Weston and Wayne Hanright say they’re struggling to keep up with Kiwis’ demand for black garlic.

Weston and Hanright cooked up their small business idea over a beer
at one of Blackball’s three pubs, and have now become one of two black garlic producers in the country.

What is black garlic?

It’s basically a slow-roasted white garlic that has a totally different flavour profile. The antioxidants increase, so it becomes about four times better for you than raw garlic.

Our black garlic undergoes a five-week transformation in 70-kilogram batches.

During that time, it goes through the Maillard reaction – the reaction reducing sugars and proteins at the same time through the impact of heat and humidity.

Basically, it goes in this raw, white garlic, then the cooking process slowly turns it into black garlic over five weeks under heat and humidity.

Why black garlic?

We started the business just over two years ago because there’s good money in it and it’s something different.

There’s only one other commercial manufacturer in New Zealand, so there’s not a hell of a lot of competition.

It was just an idea for a bit of fun at the start, and then we ended up nailing the method pretty much straight away. We just kept going with it and everybody loved it so much, it pushed us to keep expanding.

We started doing 10kg of garlic every five weeks, and now we’re doing 70kg.

We’re hoping to do about 250kg – we just need to build another big oven.

How do you make black garlic?

We put raw white garlic into the oven, then the oven gets shut for five weeks and the garlic comes out.

We then take the root off the bottom of the garlic bulb, and crush them in a crusher that we built. Once it’s all crushed, it gets put in a jarring machine and then gets jarred into 100 10g jars or custom bulk orders for restaurants and stockists.

We built all our own ovens and it’s our own design. We’ve got two at the moment, and we’ve got a third one here – an oven shelf that we just need to make into a black garlic oven.

How much are your products?

It’s $25 for a jar of crushed black garlic. A jar of honey-infused black garlic is $15.

Where can people try Blackball black garlic?

We’re at three restaurants – White Swan in Greytown, Wellington, Buccleugh’s on High in Greymouth and Monteith’s in Greymouth.

Some of our stockists are the Blackball Hilton, Blackball Inn and Greymouth i-Site.

We keep it pretty local because we end up restocking them in between the batches.

We sell at a lot of markets. We’re just everyday people that like to have a bit of a laugh with the people we’re talking to and not take it too seriously.

Have you been affected by rising supply costs and living costs?

Not really. Garlic prices have remained the same since the start. Because we’re good friends with our supplier and we buy in bulk, we get good deals there.

As far as our jars go, we haven’t really noticed much of an increase.

We both have either a small mortgage or no mortgage and big veggie gardens at home, so we’re quite self-sufficient people.

What is the market like overseas? Do you plan to expand to the international market?

We don’t plan to expand internationally at this stage.

It’s bigger overseas than it is here. Black garlic originates in Asia, where there is a big market for it.

If we were to export, it would be to Asia because people know what it is there.

Who are your main customers and your target audience?

Chefs, home cooks, people that just want to try something different, adventurous people.

Do you have any advice for anyone looking to start a business?

Back yourself and don’t give up on it if it gets tricky, and have a good plan.