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Three years ago, Jayne Collier and Wayne Binney ditched Auckland for Canterbury to try their hand at olive farming with zero experience.
Now they are preparing for their third olive harvest and have started a farm shop to support fellow Selwyn producers on the West Melton lifestyle block they bought in late 2022, sight unseen.
Collier, 55, and Binney, 62, are among the majority of residents who say Selwyn is a great place to live.
The council’s first quality of life survey, which gathered responses from 1338 people, found 88% believe the district is a great place to live.
The survey suggested residents appreciate Selwyn’s practical advantages – including services, amenities and location – but feel less emotionally connected to its character and sense of place.
The lack of connection is reflected in the results. While 86% of respondents said it is important to feel a sense of community within their neighbourhood or township, only 70% said they actually feel that in Selwyn.
For Collier and Binney, the move south came after an unexpected property opportunity.
The couple had almost finished renovating a townhouse in Mission Bay, East Auckland, when their neighbour decided to sell.
“It was a set of three townhouses, and they were worth more together than separate. So we ended up selling to developers and had six months to find somewhere to live,” Collier said.
They already had friends, Chris and Fiona, living in West Melton and had grown fond of the area through visits.
“At two o’clock in the morning, I found this place on Google on a deadline sale. We had two days to decide, and bought it sight unseen,” Collier said.
“We wanted to live in Italy, and this was the closest we could get.”
When Collier found the house, Chris and Fiona were staying with them for Billy Joel’s concert in December 2022.
“(Chris and Fiona) sent their son to the open home to check it out, he said it looked fine and structurally sound, but we didn’t know anything else,” Binney said.
Buying the house without seeing it first inspired the name of their olive oil brand: Sight Unseen.
The property already had about 2ha of olive trees, but the previous owners harvested them only on a small scale.
“The couple who had been here before us were picking for their own private use basically,” Binney said.
The couple knew nothing about olives or how to harvest them and produce olive oil.
“Before we moved down here, we started looking for olive presses,” Binney said.
What they did not realise was that most growers do not own their own press, instead sending olives elsewhere to be processed.
“All of a sudden, we had an olive grove and a press, and still no idea what we were doing.”
The couple missed their first harvest in 2023 while they were getting married in Las Vegas – complete with the full Elvis experience.
To build their knowledge, they helped with an olive harvest in Cromwell at the farm where they bought the press. Collier also spent time in Greece harvesting olives with a family friend and completed a horticulture course in Christchurch.
“It gave us confidence we were on the right track,” Binney said.
Collier left her job as a car salesperson to focus full-time on the olive grove and the couple’s shop, while Binney remained in his role as general manager at agricultural chemical company Agpro and still travels to Auckland about half the week.
The pair first met at the Auckland dealership where Collier worked when Binney came in to buy a car in late 2019.
When he returned to pick it up a few weeks later, he asked Collier out for coffee.
“To this day I swear he has no idea how any of the buttons worked on that car because he was not paying any attention at all – he was too busy figuring out how to ask me out,” Collier said.
Binney’s background is in food processing, having first worked on the factory floor at Tip Top and later Inghams.
“The processing side of the olive oil takes me back,” Binney said.
Said Collier: “So I grow the trees, he processes them, and then I sell it.”
Last year the couple also started pressing olives for other growers, which proved busier than expected after the press in Ohoka closed.
Because their press requires at least 150kg of olives to run, they organised a community harvest day where people could bring whatever olives they had and receive a share of the oil.
“The cutest one we got was a shoe box with 3kg of olives,” Collier said.
Once they had mastered producing olive oil, the next challenge was selling it.
The biggest hurdle was shipping costs, which were about $15 for a bottle that sells for around $25.
“So we did the Field of Dreams theory – if we build it, they will come. So we built a shop,” Collier said.
The couple opened The Hidden Pantry, in December last year, stocking it with their own olive oil alongside produce from other small growers in Selwyn.
“We’ve got local honey, muesli, preserves, flowers, and eggs,” she said.
They have also partnered with the Rolleston Men’s Shed to create bowls and chopping boards from olive wood, with half the sale price going back to the group.
Through the shop they have also helped other small producers with practical things such as labelling.
“For a lot of people, they don’t expect to make a living out of it, but they just don’t want it to cost them.”
While the quality-of-life survey found most residents enjoy living in Selwyn, only 62% said they feel emotionally connected to the district.
Binney said frequent work travel has made it harder for him to build those connections.
“It’s still a bit difficult to distinguish between Selwyn and Christchurch.”
But Collier said the shop has helped build a sense of community, with many locals dropping in.
Over time, Binney’s connection to Canterbury has also grown.
Said Collier: “I have even got him supporting the Crusaders, so they’d better lift their game.”
Compared to Auckland, the couple like how close everything is in Selwyn.
“Rolleston is only 15 minutes away, and when it gets a Mirte 10 it will have everything.”
A big selling point was also the distance to the airport with Binney travelling often for work. He said only takes 15 minutes to get to Christchurch Airport compared having allow two hours in Auckland.
Said Collier: “We still travel to Auckland a bit to see family, and we are always glad to get home again.”
MAKING CONNECTIONS
Kate Curtis, Darfield: “I definitely feel connected to Selwyn. “I moved to Darfield (from Christchurch) three years ago, it’s a lot smaller than Rolleston, but is more leisurely. It still has that small country town atmosphere. You can go into any store and people know your name.”
Emma Pearce, Lincoln: “I do feel connected to the Selwyn District. We moved from Christchurch to Lincoln about six years ago. “There’s lots to do, lots of different groups and it’s a great area to raise kids. It is safe and has lots of fantastic playgrounds."
OTHER SURVEY FINDINGS
- Another area of interest was the employment part of the survey with 69% of respondents saying they wanted to work locally, with people saying the biggest barrier to doing so was lack of job opportunities. Of the 59% who have full or parttime jobs, 40% work in Selwyn, 52% in Christchurch and 8% elsewhere.
- While around half of adults report having adequate money to meet their everyday needs, 19% of young people report their families frequently worry about buying food, and only 38-42% of their families never worrying about essential costs, the report suggests young people may be more aware of family financial pressures than adults self-report.