Dunedin manufacturer Norman Wood smiles as employee Barry Gibbs creates plastic containers at Passion Plastics EPI Ltd.

This article is from the Otago Daily Times published in Dunedin New Zealand.  Written by Sally Rae and Craig Baxter.  Published in the business section 28 March 2012

When Norman Wood saw an advertisement in the newspaper for a toy factory for sale eight years ago, he decided it was worth checking out.

After all, his father had a small woodworking factory and, as a child, he spent a lot of time in it. He thought he would quite like to own his own factory.

With a background in advertising, marketing and philosophy, along with a degree in planning, Mr Wood, originally from Auckland, bought EPI Plastics and became the third owner of the business, which was established in Dunedin in 1974.

Passion Plastics EPI Ltd manufactures plastic products using injection and blow moulding – everything from jerry cans and bottles to strawberry and herb planters and children’s ride-on tricycles.

Promotional products are also made at the Hope St factory.

There had been “tremendous” changes over the eight years, Mr Wood said. Staff numbers had gone from 12 to four, although turnover had increased.

A major boost to business came during the Christchurch earthquakes, when orders for plastic containers came flooding in.

The factory was temporarily ramped up to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to keep up with demand.

While the financial return was welcome – it allowed the company to pay off debt and also opened up new customers – there was also the altruism element and working “extra hard” because it was “our brothers and sisters up the road” who were affected by the tragedy, Mr Wood said.

That was another advantage of being a New Zealand supplier – the containers were needed immediately and it would take too long to source them from the likes of China.

Plastic suppliers and freight companies also worked hard to help. “That’s what you lose if you lose local manufacturing,” he said.

At that time, the company was going through about a shipping container-load of plastic a week, whereas that quantity would normally last about two months.

By August-September, things had settled down and business returned to normal.

He described the plastic, which was food-grade and made in Thailand, as being “like beans in a bean bag”.

While the plastics industry was increasingly being monopolised by a few big players, his business was “pretty cost-effective”.

He enjoyed working with small customers, saying he cared about his customers and their businesses.

About 95% of the company’s products left Dunedin but only a very small amount was exported. That was a real opportunity in the future, however, and something he was exploring.

He believed growth for his business was in importing, exporting and product development. He was also looking at moving to more modern premises in the future and investing in new equipment.

Mr Wood believed Dunedin boxed above its weight in terms of its business skills, saying there were some “pretty grunty” businesses in the city. He was grateful to the various mentors who had helped him in business over the years.

Life was busy for Mr Wood, who also has a small advertising business, owns Hulmes Court Bed and Breakfast and co-owns a book-importing business, while he and wife Zina are expecting their first child in several weeks. The key to juggling so many balls in the air was having “great staff”, he said.

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Today (24th of February 2012) I received a letter from Paul Allen on behalf of the Proud to be South D also know as South Dunedin Voice.  I must admit when I open envelopes that contain letters form people who don’t advertise or community groups I expect it might be a complaint or such like.

However, I was chuffed to bits that it was a letter that was encouraging of what I had done to the map and included the South Dunedin shopping area for the first time.  That being said, I probably should have included the South Dunedin area a long time ago.  Anyway, it is there now.

I also should say, I’m not a member of South Dunedin Voice and do not know anyone personally.  So this is a good review for me.

The letter said the following,

“Dear Norm,

At our recent South Dunedin Voice meeting Clare Curran [local member of parliament for South Dunedin] showed us the Dunedin City Centre and Campus map which you have produced over the last several years.

The South Dunedin Voice group was pleased to see the new addition of the South Dunedin map in the 2012 addition.  We would like to commend you on advertising their increasingly vibrant area of Dunedin, and bring it to the attention of tertiary students, who we are seeing on the streets of South Dunedn at the moment, looking through our excellent second hand stores.

We look forward to seeing new additions to the map in future.

Kind Regards,

Yours faithfully,

Paul Allen

On behalf of the South Dunedin Voice.

Finally, South Dunedin is on the map

By Snoopy Reporter

South Dunedin is finally going to be included on the Dunedin City Centre and Campus Map.  Click on the image below and download the latest edition of the South Dunedin Trumpet.

Click on the above image or here and read our promotional newspaper about the changes to the upcoming map that will include the South Dunedin shopping area.

Norman Wood, the publisher of the map and directory said today, “over the years a number of my customers have moved down south, but still wanted to advertise. However, until now I’ve been unable to show their location on the map.”

It is important for South Dunedin businesses to advertise to students as they are the largest market for their products and services. These shops are not close to the university, so many businesses wont have the students walk past their door.

Mr Wood, continued by saying, “however, there are a great number of fantastic businesses in South Dunedin that need to be discovered, and students are only a few minutes drive away from their door. They’ve got to advertise this and my map is an economical way for them to say, hay we are here.”

The decision was only made a few days ago to include South Dunedin, so there isn’t enough time for Norman Wood and his team to contact all businesses personally. So they are relying on the businesses contacting them directly.

Mr Wood said, ”the best way to contact us is to phone either myself on 021 2705319, or Robin Colson on 027 256 3324 and we’ll come and talk to you about the various options.

Flood about to start

By Education Reporter

Town seems quiet at the moment, but it wont be long until tens of thousands of students flood into town. For many of them it will be the first time they’ve ever been to Dunedin.

They are new and they haven’t established habits of where to buy, where to spend their money. This is a great time to build your customer base. The Dunedin City Centre and Campus Map has been around for well over 20 years and nearly 30,000 maps are distributed every 12 months. More than half tend to go out in the first month, especially to new students who are lost.

It is very important that South Dunedin businesses advertise so they don’t miss out on the opportunity.
 

In November 2011 Scott Evangelou and Norman Wood worked on the most amazing new website New Zealand has seen, known in these early days as www.dunedinmap.co.nz  This is the first test post in the news section.

I’m just testing a few things out below in short code.

This should be a table, I had to code this (cave man).

Does this look better.  This is a drop box and how does the d ook.  I think it is a little too far away from the little letters for my liking, but I might be able to fix this as my coding gets better.  Actually if I keep typing what I want to see is the words to kick back under the D as that it should be in formal graphic design (although one can always go outside the boundaries, by choice I would argue rather than my accident or negligence) anyway that should be enough typing.  I must learn that ipsom losim, or what ever it is called…. Maybe Empson Losic  Ohhh ahhh that looks lovely.  Thanks Woodudes.

This should be highlighted now This is a highligh, what ever that is.

This here is a content toggle.  It holds further or expand information that if you want to know more can research further or dig a little deeper, similar to footnotes, but contained in the body.

Below I will separate the content with a bar, I will muck around with columns then I will finish off with a separation bar that hopefully will contain the column formatting code within the bars.  Then I will get rid of columns to see if things screw up.

Although I must admin I can’t get my head around the flow from one to the other column, as this has to be done manually with cut and paste.

Flat divider below

This is the result of a Tab Layout

• Norman
• Ann
• Scott
• Roy

Norman grew up in Auckland New Zealand

Ann is from Belgium and is married to Craig.  They have a dog called Shadow.

Scott is our SEO consultant, he is from the United States of America.

Roy is from Dunedin.  He looks after repairs and maintenance, and new developments.  He is also an adviser on retail expansion.

Ok, so now I’m going to try out some list generator codes.

So this is the Facebook Like button floated to the left

Ohh ahh the Facebook share button floated to the right  

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

For experimental purposes Norman Wood will now insert a photo of Scott Evangelou our SEO and Social Media Marketing consultant.