Best business – $10m to $50m

Some of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers have discovered the expertise of Altitude Aerospace Interiors – a New Zealand company with invaluable knowledge of the interior fit-out requirements for jet aircraft and a flair for bespoke cabin furniture. 

If you ever decide your private Boeing really needs its own lounge bar, call Altitude Aerospace Interiors.

Altitude designs, engineers, certifies and installs aircraft cabin interiors for Boeing and Airbus jets.  Its contracts involve fit-outs for executive aircraft, bespoke interiors and internal reconfiguration for commercial airlines.

The company has grown fast in just three years, more than doubling its revenue and export earnings in that time.

General Manager Michael Pervan says the company is focusing on the gaps in the market as yet un-targeted by its competitors. Altitude’s differentiation lies in a broader approach to design, beyond the traditionally conservative and highly regulated engineering considerations of aviation.

Altitude is focused on capturing an ever larger slice of the global jet aircraft cabin interiors industry, which is worth over US$4 billion annually.

The lavish interiors of VIP or executive jets are one of the company’s two niche target markets. Altitude specialises in providing luxurious aircraft interiors for governments, heads of state, corporations and wealthy individuals worldwide, with a particular focus on Asia-Pacific based customers.

Altitude’s other niche is in commercial airline interiors in the premium cabin sections of the aeroplane, where requirements can range from lounge bars, luxury passenger closets or crew rest cabins.

Established in October 2008, Altitude employs 80 full-time staff, primarily professional engineers and designers. The company enjoys the rare status as a recognised VIP completion centre and authorised airline interiors supplier status by Boeing.

Mr Pervan says Altitude aims to continue to grow a globally-successful technology-based business and become the world-leading, New Zealand-based jet aircraft interiors supplier.

Canary Enterprises makes medallions of butter embossed with the logos of its five-star customers, and produces perfectly portioned butter cuts for chefs in fast-paced kitchens from Australasia to the Middle East.

Canary Enterprises started out to ‘Make Butter Better’. With butter as its base product, it created time-saving butter-based products for commercial kitchens, such as butter medallions, butter rosettes and pastry butter sheets.

However, along the way, the company Canary transformed to ‘Making Food Fabulous’.

Director Derek Bartosh explains: “Delivering so much more than butter is achieved by knowing our customers and their processes, and this lead us to see other opportunities to add value for our customers, an opportunity that resulted in the Canary Culinary Range.

“This is an ever evolving range of portion controlled sauces, garnishes and fillings that may or may not be dairy based (examples include Lemon Parsley Butter Rosette and an Apricot Cream Cheese Bullet). The culinary range has so many possibilities it has taken Canary from being a company that Makes Butter Better to one that is Making Food Fabulous.”

Canary sells into Asia, the Middle East, Australasia and the Pacific Islands. Its clients are airline caterers, five star hotels, bakers and industrial food manufacturers and meat processors, such as supermarket butcheries.

The company prioritises staff work-life balance, and environmental and social responsibility. The company purposefully structured its manufacturing around two daily split shifts, rather than a 24 hour operation, to create an attractive employment environment. This lifestyle consideration has resulted in a number of high-quality recruits with experience working in the dairy foods industry.

On an environmental level, the company is based in an energy efficient building, does not wrap its butter medallions, uses greaseproof paper rather than plastic film where possible, and uses butter off-cuts in the manufacture of its clarified butter product to minimise waste.

Canary, established in 2001, had revenue in 2011 of $15 million, of which $11 million was export earnings.

Yoghurt-lovers around the globe are latching on to the Kiwi fresh yoghurt making system EasiYo.

Father of eight, Len Light, developed EasiYo in his North Shore garage 20 years ago. Today there are 1.4 million EasiYo yoghurt makers in homes around the world and, his secret recipe – built around a blend of premium Westland milk and a unique probiotic cultures – continues to confound would-be competitors.

EasiYo was launched at the Auckland Home Show in 1992 and started exporting in 1993. The company manufactures and markets yoghurt makers and milk powder-based yoghurt mixes to consumers and foodservice customers around the world. Customers are able to make their own fresh yoghurt for use at home or in foodservice situations such as school canteens, restaurants, and armed forces catering.

The company is wholly owned by Westland Milk Products. Its biggest markets are the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand but there are plans underway to expand into strategically-selected markets, including Italy and parts of Southeast Asia.

Chief Executive Paul O’Brien says EasiYo recorded revenue of $30 million in the last year, of which $24 million came from international sales. He and his team are aiming for exports to grow to 80 percent of sales.

Mr O’Brien says EasiYo is the world’s biggest own-made yoghurt brand. It sells through TV Home Shopping in Taiwan, China, Italy, Korea and the United Kingdom and in most markets through supermarkets, influential department stores, healthfood shops, cookware stores and on the web.

In export, the company has proved nimble in responding to consumer tastes. In Korea, for example, drinking yoghurt is popular so a thinner product was swiftly developed and launched to satisfy the market’s demands. Other product innovations are driven by suggestions from staff and consumers and feature a variety of common and unique ranges, including a recent addition of Greek yoghurt with coconut bits.

Global fitness brand Les Mills International has established its patented group exercise classes in more than 10 percent of the world’s gyms, fitness centres and health clubs.

Les Mills International exports 10 exercise-to-music programmes to 80 countries, where 90,000 certified instructors teach classes through 14,000 licensed gyms and clubs.

The Kiwi fitness pioneer has sold its patented workouts into about 11 percent of the world’s health clubs and employs 130 people across the group, 80 in its Auckland head office.

Chief Executive Phillip Mills says the company’s largest offshore market is the United Kingdom and Europe, accounting for almost half of Les Mills International‘s export earnings.

Attendance at classes worldwide exceeds 3 million workouts a week. The Auckland-based company has a vision of creating a fitter planet by growing this to 20 million workouts a week by 2020.

Les Mills International earns revenue from licensing fees paid by health clubs; the training, certification and education of instructors; quarterly sales of renewed programming, training materials and licensed music; sales of branded clothing to instructors and consumers; and sales of branded equipment to clubs.

From New Zealand, with local suppliers, the company renews each of its 10 exercise programmes every three months with new class choreography, licensed music, instructor education and marketing. These are then exported to clubs through a network of 30 agents.

The company has focused heavily on its process for commercialising great ideas.

Recent innovations include a revolutionary new barbell system which the company is currently patenting, and a consumer promotion with global food giant Nestlé which reaches millions of consumers.

It has also signed music-licensing arrangements with global music companies Sony and EMI, which are unique in the fitness industry.

Mr Mills says independent research routinely shows customer satisfaction rates above 90 percent, high referral rates, and weekly exercise attendances as much as double the industry average.

Natural skincare brand Trilogy has blossomed from the brainchild of two Wellington sisters into a global brand available in some of the world’s best-known stores.

When Wellington-based sisters Sarah Gibbs and Catherine de Groot established Trilogy in 2002, their vision was to create a natural skincare range which performed better than its competitors, and was ethically and environmentally responsible.

Less than 10 years later, Trilogy is a thriving, international business, generating $11.9 million revenue last year, of which $7.3 million was earned overseas. This was more than double the international sales figure in 2008 of $3.2 million.

Trilogy was bought by Ecoya in October 2010 and Sarah Gibbs was subsequently appointed to the Ecoya board. Launched with just five products, including its hero product and key ingredient Certified Organic Rosehip Oil, the Trilogy range today contains over 40 products including face care, body care and hair care. Products are sold in 20 international markets through 4,000 retail outlets, as well as online.

Trilogy’s main export markets are Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Japan and Korea, with smaller markets in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan and the United States.

It has secured placement in some of the world’s most famous department stores, pharmacies and health stores, including John Lewis and Boots in the United Kingdom, Isetan in Japan and Myer in Australia.

The company approaches its offshore markets in one of three ways – with a Trilogy office, through a direct sales relationship with a retailer, or through a distributor.

Trilogy employs 27 full time staff in Wellington, Melbourne and London. The brand generates over $4 million worth of media coverage a year and has won numerous prestigious beauty awards.

A subscriber base of 35,000 contacts, 69 percent of which are overseas, allows the company to communicate with its customers and fans directly, wherever in the world they might be.

Katikati-based innovator Triodent exports its unique designs to dentists in more than 60 countries.

Triodent conceives, designs and manufactures low-cost, high-margin products that solve everyday dental problems.

Founder and Chief Executive Dr Simon McDonald is himself a dentist and the catalyst for much of Triodent’s growth is the V3 Sectional Matrix System he developed.

A breakthrough product with several original design features, the V3 is a combination of instruments which are used to assist with difficult restorations in the back of the mouth. The system is considered the gold standard for its category, eliciting remarkably emotive responses from satisfied users, and has attracted a haul of international awards.

Other clever and original designs have followed the V3 and, with many more under development, Triodent is considered a leading industry innovator.

Established in 2003 in the Bay of Plenty town of Katikati, Triodent is a wholly-owned New Zealand company with 120 staff and sales in more than 60 countries. Revenue in 2011 was $14.5 million, of which $13.6 million was earned offshore. The company’s aim is to be a $200 million company in five years.

Triodent’s main focus is the United States, which accounts for half of all revenue. It has about 12,000 direct US customers – about 10 percent of the potential market.

 “We put great store in building meaningful and long-term relationships with our customers, with our distributors, with dental schools and key opinion leaders, but all the professionalism in the world will not help a poorly-designed product, so we also focus heavily on research and development to constantly improve our products, stay ahead of the competition and develop new products.”

Cinema software supplier Vista Entertainment Solutions is an established force in some of the world’s most competitive cinema environments.

Vista Entertainment Solutions is already the largest supplier of cinema ticketing and site management software in the world. But the successful Auckland company is unlikely to stop there.

Chief Executive Murray Holdaway says he can see opportunities to adapt the company’s software product to serve entertainment industries worldwide.

“We will use our success in the cinema industry to provide the base to move into the small cinema market (cinema companies owning fewer than 20 screens), related entertainment verticals and other sectors where our fast food service and other functions have market application.”

From its New Zealand base, Vista operates a sophisticated network of nine strategically-located offices and resellers. It is the dominant supplier in Australasia, Asia, India, Central and South America and Canada. In the market of cinema companies owning 20 screens or more Vista’s global market share is around 20percent. It dominates some territories with Mexico at 97 percent.

Vista’s software is now installed in 52 countries. The company has an aggressive software development and enhancement program, through which users receive new functionality on a monthly basis.

Turnover increased from $7 million in 2007 to $24.1 million in 2010, the company’s installed base grew from 566 to 1,742 cinema sites, and staff numbers have grown from 27 to 83. In 2011, 83 percent of the company’s revenue was earned overseas.

 “Our reputation as ‘good people to do business with’ and ‘caring about service’ has been a critical element in our success. We have been very careful to ensure our key staff who front the company all have this culture.

“This has been helped by the fact that over time most of these people have become shareholders and have a vested interest in the success of the business,” Mr Holdaway says.