Goddard, RD & M
Market Day
SaturdayPhone
03 472 8733Mobile
027 204 0601Address
Jersey Bennie potatoes, purple potatoes, carrots, parsnips, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, silver beet, artichokes and yams.
Ray and Maureen Goddard have been at the Otago Farmers Market since it first started on the 1st of March 2003. As a founding Trustee Ray worked on organising the market for two years before it opened and has been a key person in ensuring its success.
Ray has a proud history of involvement in horticultural in the west of the Otago Harbour. His father George Goddard left the sawyers bay tannery in the same year that Ray was born in 1946 to start growing potatoes in Roseneath. He grew half an acre of potatoes to sell at the local auctions.
As children Ray and his brothers and sisters were expected to assist with the market garden and spent afternoons after primary school picking potatoes and strawberries from Strawberry Lane. School took second place to the market garden and the month before Christmas the children were taken out of school to help with the harvest and planting.
Ray left school at 17 to start his first and only job, growing in Sawyers Bay, working for his father and two of his brothers on the family market garden. While working in the market garden Ray purchased land for himself. In 1968, aged 27, Ray and his brother Steve went out on their own and planted their first crop of Jersey Bennie potatoes. This was also when Ray started his long term involvement in the Otago Horticultural Association.
As the business grew Ray moved out of the caravan by the packing shed in Sawyers Bay and bought a farm in neighbouring Blanket Bay. It was while growing in Blanket Bay in the early 70’s that Ray met his wife Maureen who is still an essential part of the business today.
With 150 acres in production “Goddard Brothers” employed many part time workers producing produce and sending it throughout the South Island even exporting to Perth Australia. At was at this time that Ray realised that selling direct was one way to improve the returns, so they started up a fresh produce outlet in a converted dairy shed on the property, which people from all over the region used to flock to.
In 1986 Ray went out on his own and returned to grow at Sawyers Bay, where he continued to supply the produce to auctions. In 2001 the Dunedin City Council held a meeting for people interested is establishing a Farmers Market in Dunedin, Ray attended the meeting as a representative of the local growers, and explained how growers had found themselves at the mercy of the supermarket buyers and if alternatives were not found many of them would no longer be able to operate.
As a result of Ray’s outspokenness at this meeting and his support of the concept for a farmers market he found himself unable to sell his produce to some retailers. An exception was the local supermarket who’s customers valued and preferred, local produce.
Today Ray and Maureen, sell all of their produce through the Otago Farmers Market. They do not grow as much as they have in the past, but the 15 acres they do work is more than enough to keep him busy throughout the year.
Ray reckons that long nights, short days and variation in temperature is what gives his potatoes their tangy unique flavour. The land in Sawyers Bay has a harbour side micro climate, which means that frosts are not as heavy as in other parts of Otago and as a result the crops do not get damaged as much as in other areas.
Today Ray and Maureen’s main crops are Jersey Bennie potatoes, which have made Sawyers Bay famous, purple potatoes, maroi potatoes plus carrots, parsnips, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, silver beet, artichokes and yams.
It the personal contact with the land and nature that keeps Ray motivated and it is the feedback that he gets every week from loyal customers, who prefer to purchase fresh, local produce that is the highlight of Ray’s week.
Ray and Maureen Goddard have been at the Otago Farmers Market since it first started on the 1st of March 2003. As a founding Trustee Ray worked on organising the market for two years before it opened and has been a key person in ensuring its success.
Ray has a proud history of involvement in horticultural in the west of the Otago Harbour. His father George Goddard left the sawyers bay tannery in the same year that Ray was born in 1946 to start growing potatoes in Roseneath. He grew half an acre of potatoes to sell at the local auctions.
As children Ray and his brothers and sisters were expected to assist with the market garden and spent afternoons after primary school picking potatoes and strawberries from Strawberry Lane. School took second place to the market garden and the month before Christmas the children were taken out of school to help with the harvest and planting.
Ray left school at 17 to start his first and only job, growing in Sawyers Bay, working for his father and two of his brothers on the family market garden. While working in the market garden Ray purchased land for himself. In 1968, aged 27, Ray and his brother Steve went out on their own and planted their first crop of Jersey Bennie potatoes. This was also when Ray started his long term involvement in the Otago Horticultural Association.
As the business grew Ray moved out of the caravan by the packing shed in Sawyers Bay and bought a farm in neighbouring Blanket Bay. It was while growing in Blanket Bay in the early 70’s that Ray met his wife Maureen who is still an essential part of the business today.
With 150 acres in production “Goddard Brothers” employed many part time workers producing produce and sending it throughout the South Island even exporting to Perth Australia. At was at this time that Ray realised that selling direct was one way to improve the returns, so they started up a fresh produce outlet in a converted dairy shed on the property, which people from all over the region used to flock to.
In 1986 Ray went out on his own and returned to grow at Sawyers Bay, where he continued to supply the produce to auctions. In 2001 the Dunedin City Council held a meeting for people interested is establishing a Farmers Market in Dunedin, Ray attended the meeting as a representative of the local growers, and explained how growers had found themselves at the mercy of the supermarket buyers and if alternatives were not found many of them would no longer be able to operate.
As a result of Ray’s outspokenness at this meeting and his support of the concept for a farmers market he found himself unable to sell his produce to some retailers. An exception was the local supermarket who’s customers valued and preferred, local produce.
Today Ray and Maureen, sell all of their produce through the Otago Farmers Market. They do not grow as much as they have in the past, but the 15 acres they do work is more than enough to keep him busy throughout the year.
Ray reckons that long nights, short days and variation in temperature is what gives his potatoes their tangy unique flavour. The land in Sawyers Bay has a harbour side micro climate, which means that frosts are not as heavy as in other parts of Otago and as a result the crops do not get damaged as much as in other areas.
Today Ray and Maureen’s main crops are Jersey Bennie potatoes, which have made Sawyers Bay famous, purple potatoes, maroi potatoes plus carrots, parsnips, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, silver beet, artichokes and yams.
It the personal contact with the land and nature that keeps Ray motivated and it is the feedback that he gets every week from loyal customers, who prefer to purchase fresh, local produce that is the highlight of Ray’s week.