Gran's makes tracks around the world

Gran's Remedy crops up in some funny places, from a frigate bound for the Middle East, where a pottle of the remedy for smelly feet and footwear was spotted via breakfast television in a locker, to appearing on stage at the Fortune Theatre.

Gran's Remedies Ltd accountant and chief executive Jim Reay went to a play several years ago and there was the familiar pottle on stage. Not only was it a prop, but there was also some dialogue around it.

"It's almost invasive. Everybody knows about it," he said, laughing.

The "Gran" in Gran's Remedy was the grandmother of one of the company's shareholders and directors, Wayne Nicholson, who solved the problem of smelly feet with an old recipe that had been handed down through the generations.

Years later, Mr Nicholson was working on the wharf at Port Chalmers, where Bill Galer was his boss, and the two men got chatting. They decided the recipe might have commercial potential and the two families got together.

In those early years, the foot powder was mixed in sterilised concrete-mixers, put into pottles and hawked around local pharmacies.

Then Jim Davis, from Pharmabroker Sales in Auckland, heard about it and added Gran's to his product range. Since then, it had gone from "strength to strength", Mr Reay, who has been involved since the 1980s, said.

"It's become an icon for New Zealand, really. There wouldn't be too many that haven't heard of Gran's foot powders. It's a trusted thing that people buy."

Feet perspired naturally and produced fatty acids and, in the warm damp atmosphere of footwear, bacteria on the feet fed off the fatty acids, multiplied and gave off the bad odour, he said.

The bacteria got into the footwear, making the footwear smell. Gran's worked by eliminating the bacteria that caused the smell.

Manufacturing of the product shifted from Dunedin to Auckland about seven or eight years ago. Previously a "backyard cottage-type industry", it got too big and "mixing in a concrete mixer was not going to work", Mr Reay said.

Most of the overseas shipments left directly from the factory in Waiuku, while the local market was supplied from Dunedin, where Mr Nicholson ran the warehouse and distribution market.

Sales in New Zealand had dropped in the past couple of years due to the recession. The pharmacy sector, in particular, had suffered.

While not considered a luxury, the product was certainly discretionary but it still had a "tremendous" following. About 50,000 pottles a year were sold in New Zealand.

The export market cropped up nearly 10 years ago and the first major export market was Japan. That was still a significant market and Mr Reay believed it would grow.

The company had also been exporting to Australia for quite some time and he believed that market also had the potential to "really mushroom".