Blue Frog Breakfast

Blue Frog Breakfast was founded in 2019 by passionate foodie Scotty Baragwanath. Over nine years, he'd gone from making cereals in his kitchen to having his premium breakfast products stocked in hundreds of stores in New Zealand and Australia. “The investment from Kiwibank enabled us to buy a much larger automatic filler (machine) so we could go from around 2,000 bags per shift to 15,000. That was instrumental in us growing. It was an absolute game-changer.” said Baragwanath.

Today Blue Frog sells 16 products in over 350 stores in New Zealand and almost 1,400 in Australia.

"Scotty had a clear vision for producing a premium quality product and an understanding of how sustainability would be part of that" says Tom Williams, Kiwibank’s Head of Sustainable Finance, "Blue Frog cereals are a premium product that reflects consumer preference."

"Sustainability is crucial if businesses are looking to trade internationally, with the supply chain often demanding it. It could be consumer preference, or a large purchaser saying, ‘Hey, we want to know what your ethical sourcing policy is because our customers want that’.

Kiwibank, like Blue Frog, are B Corp certified. Baragwanath says sustainability is important to Blue Frog, the first breakfast food company to be B Corp certified in the Asia Pacific region. It's also certified as carbon positive by Ekos, which means it has measured and offset 120% of its carbon footprint.

Expertise shared by Kiwibank commercial manager Mike Mangino, who has built a strong one-on-one relationship with Baragwanath, has been vital. "Mike will come and have a coffee and catch up on what’s happening, and a lot of the conversation is him sharing perspectives on other businesses he's working with,” says Baragwanath.