It all began when Heather and Robin tasted tamarillo relish on a panini at the Kings Café in Silverdale. That prompted them to plant tamarillo trees on their 10 acre lifestyle block in Whangarei to make tamarillo relish, jams, jellies, sauces, and vinaigrette dressing.
Q: What is the brand story?
A: The New Zealand Tamarillo Co-Operative Ltd (Tamco Ltd) was formed to secure a constant supply of high grade fruit and the products marketed under the brand name “For the love of Tams”. Recently both products were launched into the US and will shortly be available in Australia.
Q: What is the current product range and variants and what makes these products stand out in the market?
A: The Tamarillo Vinegar Dressing is a red wine vinaigrette infused with tamarillo and slightly sweetened. This infusion technique was not available in New Zealand, so Tamco had to design and construct the necessary equipment. The Tamarillo Relish is a delicious blend of tamarillo, vinegars and spices.
Q: What is innovative or unique about the product?
A: The Tamarillo Relish is unique as Tamco has developed a technique designed to extract only the sweetest pulp from the tamarillo fruit to leave the more bitter pith with the skin. For the production of the Tamarillo Vinaigrette Dressing they had to design a unique infusion technique.
Q: Who is your consumer and what benefit does the product bring them?
A: After a year of tweaking the recipes they were satisfied that they had met their customers’ expectations. It was when Auckland retailers wanted to stock Tamco products that they realised that they needed to upscale and commercialise their business. The Tamarillo Vinaigrette Dressing is a beautiful ruby red product, tart/sweet in flavour which complements many foods when drizzled over as a dressing. All the products are packaged in glass with a modern gourmet style label. They are based on red wine and balsamic vinegar, are free of cholesterol, fat and sodium and high in anti-aging antioxidants and rich in resveratrol. Both products are gluten free and do not contain added preservatives, colours or fillers that are commonly found in many other food products.
Q: What consumer trend does the product support?
A: Customer satisfaction with the two products has been proven over the past seven years by the high volume of repeat.
Over the past seven years Tamco sales have increased by 23% per annum on a per market basis.
For more information contact Robin on +64 027 262 6949 or email robin@tamco.co.nz
