Tōrere Macadamias founder Vanessa Hayes has won the Entrepreneurial Māori Business Leader Award.

The Māori Business Leader Awards were held at the University of Auckland on October 23 and recognised people across a variety of industries.

The judges said Ms Hayes was “a person who is entrepreneurial and innovative and is building a business that upholds Māori values”.

“Vanessa’s passion is to have Māori participating at all levels in an industry which has historically been non-Māori and relied on imported macadamias.”

Tōrere Macadamias supplies trees from its nursery, provides grower workshops, training programmes and support for all growers, including three Māori regional grower collectives with 50 hectares in early stages of planting.

The company’s macadamia kernels are significantly higher in vital nutrients than imported varieties.

Tōrere Macadamias reached a milestone in its growth when it won a contract to supply Air New Zealand’s long haul and business class flights from 2024 onwards.

Ms Hayes received the 2024 NZ Organic Regenerative Farmer Award, acknowledging her commitment to organic sustainable farming.

Ms Hayes said her involvement with macadamia nuts began in 1983 when she was looking for something to grow on her land.

“I was looking for the best crop to grow, something that did not require spray or chemicals,” she said. “Something that was good to eat.”

She discovered macadamias during that research and having decided she wanted to grow the nuts, she set about finding out about them.

“In New Zealand, there was no background, no research for me to tap into so I had to start doing that myself.”

Ms Hayes began by collecting every macadamia variety there was in New Zealand and trialling them on her block of land.

“I imported the best from overseas to compare them with,” she said.

“Over time, I eliminated the bad ones and kept the best.”

She started the battle of the best macadamias when there were 60 varieties, but as her work has progressed, she has evaluated more than 100 varieties.

Once the research was completed, Ms Hayes said she decided to “do things properly” and started Tōrere Macadamias in 1993.

Her partner, Rod Husband, joined her that same year and Tōrere Macadamias was certified organic in 2013.

In 2023, Tōrere Macadamias’ 6-hectare orchard produced 20 tonnes of organic macadamias.

Ms Hayes leads the New Zealand macadamia industry’s 10-year growth strategy to grow more than 1000ha of organic macadamias with superior varieties.