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Weet-Bix Stat Attack cards. Soon to feature Black Ferns (Image: Fair Go)
Weet-Bix Stat Attack cards. Soon to feature Black Ferns (Image: Fair Go)

OPINIONBusinessNovember 30, 2022

Sanitarium loves the Black Ferns now. What took them so long?

Weet-Bix Stat Attack cards. Soon to feature Black Ferns (Image: Fair Go)
Weet-Bix Stat Attack cards. Soon to feature Black Ferns (Image: Fair Go)

We shouldn’t celebrate brands for finally doing what they could’ve done years ago, argues Madeleine Chapman.

On Monday night, Sanitarium announced through consumer affairs programme Fair Go (and later on Instagram) that the Black Ferns would feature on Stat Attack cards in 2023. The cards, which come as a collectible set in cereal boxes, feature prominent rugby players and have been a successful promotion for Sanitarium for years. The announcement was met with congratulations and thank yous. Users commented that they would be buying cereal in bulk to collect all the cards.

Virtually every Black Ferns player promoted the post (not something the All Blacks players ever do) and Fair Go dedicated a third of its “consumer heroes” episode to the development (young Daisy had asked last month why there were no Black Ferns on the cards and Fair Go looked into it).

The episode ended with the big reveal that Black Ferns Stat Attack cards were on the way, and Daisy was gifted a range of Sanitarium merch which was displayed prominently during the segment.

It would all be wholesome and beautiful except Sanitarium has, according to them, enjoyed a “20+ year sponsorship with the All Blacks” and has been making Stat Attack cards for at least five. A few Black Ferns were included in a 2018 Stat Attack set and then were never included again. The most recent promotion began a month before the World Cup, here in New Zealand, and still featured no Black Ferns. Technically Sanitarium stans could argue that the company sponsors the All Blacks, not the Black Ferns. That’s correct. It doesn’t officially sponsor the Black Ferns. Instead, it has “product sponsorship”, meaning it provides cereal and Up&Gos to the team. But it has enough association with NZ Rugby and the players that no one would know the difference so why bother investing actual money?

Applauding Sanitarium for including the Black Ferns after the World Cup is over and the players are household names is like applauding a restaurant for finally supplying cutlery. It’s a great thing to have but after a few seconds you start to wonder why the hell it wasn’t there from the beginning.

Lovely product placement (Image: Fair Go)

An aside – here is a list of things to keep in mind:

1) I have been referring to Sanitarium as a company but it is technically a charity as it is owned by the Seventh Day Adventist church and is therefore exempt from company income tax.

2) The Seventh Day Adventist church’s official stance is against homosexuality. According to the website: “Seventh-day Adventists believe that sexual intimacy belongs only within the marital relationship of a man and a woman.”

3) A number of Black Ferns are openly queer and publicly celebrate their queerness.

In mid-September, I asked Sanitarium why there were no Black Ferns on its Weet-Bix Stat Attack cards. I asked the longtime NZ Rugby partner whether or not there had even been a discussion or consideration around featuring some of the women on cereal boxes during the World Cup.

Sanitarium’s response at the time was long and typically corporate, citing a “proud legacy” between itself and the All Blacks, noting that the company had “included the Black Ferns in Weet-Bix promotions in the past and are looking to again in the future.”

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It was a disappointing response from one of New Zealand’s most recognisable brands, particularly given the association of Weet-Bix with active kids (girls included) all over the country through its Try-athlon events. The interaction (and duplicate response from NZ Rugby about the lack of sponsor engagement) led me to write a piece in mid-October headlined “Does NZ Rugby even know there’s a World Cup happening?” I included the example of Sanitarium and the apparent ambivalence towards the Black Ferns during a World Cup campaign.

Two months later and the Black Ferns are world champions, playing the grand final to a sold-out Eden Park and the highest-rating free to air broadcast of the year. This is when all the brands will jump onboard, better late than never, I thought. And how partners like Sanitarium will rue the day they neglected to even pay attention to such a sellable product as the Black Ferns players.

Black Ferns celebrate victory, November 12, 2022. (Photo: Andy Jackson/World Rugby via Getty Images)

But in the world of supporting women’s sport, the bar is apparently on the floor.

Daisy, who was incredible talent as the young consumer reporter on Fair Go, asked the programme on October 3 why she couldn’t collect Black Ferns Stat-Attack cards. Fair Go asked Sanitarium days later and received what appears to be a near-verbatim response to the one I’d received in September. A proud legacy…All Blacks…Try-athlon. On November 21, Sanitarium informed Fair Go that there would be a new set out in 2023 (so, quite a while after the World Cup and more than 20 years after Sanitarium began its relationship with NZ Rugby) featuring Black Ferns players. It was filmed, aired, promoted and celebrated. Sanitarium is an advertiser on TVNZ, but Fair Go confirmed that the news and current affairs shows operate independently.

Sanitarium did not respond to a follow-up request for comment on the timing of its promotion or its impetus. There has been no announcement about any official sponsorship of the Black Ferns by Sanitarium.

The cards outcome is ultimately good. Black Ferns should be on Weet-Bix Stat-Attack cards. And it makes sense to celebrate it and be glad. But the sheer force of the positive response shows both how little has been given to women’s sport and how little is required for companies to become champions of it, even after decades of neglect.

Keep going!
Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

BusinessNovember 29, 2022

‘We’ll take anything’: The people fighting to keep fashion out of the landfill

Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

Textile waste is under the microscope and change is coming. But those trying to raise awareness say it’s not happening quickly enough.

This is an excerpt from our weekly business newsletter Stocktake.

For the past 20 years, Jeff Vollebregt has worked in flash corporate head offices overseas. “US and Europe and Asia,” he says, listing the places he’s lived during that time. “Travel has been in the blood.” He and his partner have been semi-nomadic and it’s allowed them to raise their kids while seeing the world. Along the way, Vollebregt’s racked up quite the CV with high profile roles at 3M, BP, DHL and Parcelport all on his LinkedIn profile. “I’ve had a good corporate career,” he admits.

Now, in a rundown Onehunga building with rubbish bins out front, wind whistling in through the open roller doors and rain spitting on the roof, things have changed.

Vollebregt is standing in the middle of a warehouse and can barely be heard over the hum of machinery. Surrounding him are giant sacks full of rubbish that could easily have been chucked into the bin and sent straight to landfill. Stuff spills out of sacks ready for sorting, some of it dirty, smelly, coated in oil and well past its use-by date.

Vollebregt crosses his arms and beams. He couldn’t be happier. From this humble space, Vollebregt has helped launch the New Zealand arm of Upparel, an Australasian fashion waste recycling program and a first for Aotearoa. “We’ll take anything,” he says, digging through a nearby bag of clothes that was recently dropped off. He repeats that last word for effect: “Anything … Everything anyone is wearing today, uniforms, PPE, garments, textiles, fabrics, we take back.”

Upparel
At Upparel, clothes are sorted and grouped together, waiting to be turned into filler. Photo: Supplied

He means it, showing me through bin after bin of clothes that are being sifted through, sorted and organised. With the help of a small team, Vollebregt removes zips, buttons and metal domes from jackets and pants and sends those to a metal recycler. Clothes are bundled up according to fabrics and stored together. Some of the bins Vollebregt digs through are full of unworn corporate wear. “They’ll do a run of 100 XL jackets – it’s a minimum order” he says. “They use 80, so there’s 20 sitting there that never get used. All 20 would go to landfill.”

Now, there’s another option. Since late last year, Vollebregt’s been gratefully accepting any clothes he can get his hands on. He charges a small amount per kilo to take it in and his bins are chocka, full of corporate vests, hi-vis safety gear, dress pants, heavy jackets, gloves, belts, ties and safety helmets. Soon, the dream is to import machinery, instal it in this space and convert as much of the waste as possible into shredded fill to be on-sold to couch, cushion and jacket manufacturers, just like they do in Australia.

“It’s gone gangbusters,” he says of the Australian arm of Upparel. Across the ditch, more than a million tonnes of waste has been saved from landfill and converted in this way. In New Zealand, about 100 tonne of garments has been sorted over the past year, and is sitting there, waiting, ready to get the same treatment.

Textile waste
Clothes can be recycled, shredded and turned into filler for cushions, couches and jackets, says Jeff Vollebregt. Photo: Supplied

Vollebregt decided to flag his high-flying corporate career and turn his attention to fashion recycling because he could see it becoming a growing issue. “Textiles are one of the highest emitting products in landfill,” he says. “I could see this whole textile waste thing becoming a real problem.” Also nagging him was the state of the world he’d be leaving behind for his kids. “They’re probably going to go away and say, ‘Thanks, dad, for the nice, privileged upbringing, but no thanks for destroying the planet. This is a nice way to [give] back.”

Just how bad have fashion’s waste woes become? “I don’t think people realise how dire it is,” says Charli Cox. “We have to make people see how much of a problem this is.”



Cox has spent every spare minute of the past four years doing exactly that with Koha Apparel, a not-for-profit that recycles clothes and offers them to those in need with a pay-what-you-can-afford model. Cox hates seeing clothes being chucked in the bin. “I think it’s something like 9% of landfill is filled with clothing. This is terrible. This is carbon emissions … We’re saying, ‘You need to get an electric vehicle.’ Really, you need to stop putting your clothing in the rubbish bin … It’s what the industry needs. It’s what the planet needs.”

Cox speaks to me in the early morning while sitting in her van in the carpark of a company where she’s about to pick up boxes of excess clothes. Beside her is Koha’s communications manager Tracey Creed. Like Vollebregt at Upparel, many of the clothes the pair pick up are unused. They’ll be be sorted and sent to one of 19 Koha stations around the country then passed on to those who need them: families, kids, the homeless, and those who want to dress up for job interviews. As the cost of living crisis continues, Creed says there’s more need than ever. “[We need] functional, quality clothing that people will feel good in.” What else does she need? “Money,” she says.

Koha Apparel
Koha Apparel’s Charli Cox and Tracey Creed. Photo: Jamie Lee Photography

Being offered boxes of unwanted clothes isn’t the only way Cox and Creed find their recycled goods. Cox made headlines when she was caught dumpster diving for shoes in a skip outside fashion brand Moochi. Cox says the incident has helped raise awareness that services like hers, and now Upparel, exist. She’s been trying to get local fashion brands on board with Koha, but says out of 100 letters she sent out recently, only three responded. Some don’t want damaged or faulty clothes being worn as it could damage the brand. But Cox says those garments would be fixed first. “To have access to this kind of clothing is game-changing,” she says. “And it’s going in the rubbish.”

Vollebregt agrees he’s just part of the solution. Like Koha Apparel, he needs more buy-in from the local fashion industry to be able to order those machines, but says he’s not far off, estimating it will happen sometime next year. One local brand, Kate Sylvester, is already using Upparel as part of its own recycling program. The long-running Auckland fashion label already has a repair service, and the ability for customers to on-sell items they no longer use. But those who have items that have come to the end of their life can return them, says head of brand Sophie Donovan. They’ll then be sent to Upparel for recycling. “It gets us closer to that circular model,” she says. As for the extra cost to Kate Sylvester: “It’s money well spent.”

As he waits for more brands to come on board, Vollebregt is commuting to Auckland from his home in the Coromandel every Monday, determined to make connections, educate the industry and spread the word that there’s another option other than sending unwanted clothes to landfill. Right now, he’s so determined to stop stuff going to the tip he even accepts unwanted goods like plates and cutlery. Anything he can’t find a recycling home for – like shoes – he keeps in a separate bin because he believes, sooner or later, a recycling solution will reveal itself.

But there’s one thing Vollebregt won’t take. Finally, near the end of our tour, he admits there’s an item of clothing even he doesn’t want to deal with. Yes, secondhand underwear, your dirty old gruts, are a no-go. “It’s a tough one,” he says. “It’s a hygiene thing.” Then he stares around his warehouse, wondering where he might be able to store them should a box suddenly arrive on his doorstep. He’s already got his thinking cap on. Always an optimist, he says: “There’ll be a solution someday.”

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