The Brothers Green journey.
Founded on a shared vision to reverse the trend of human health decline. From a late-night yarn over a bag of hemp protein, to two stores across Aotearoa and Australia.
A late-night yarn that changed everything.
A pharmacist and a rural banker, picking up a bag of hemp protein.
The Brothers Green was founded in Christchurch, March 2017, on a late-night visit to pick up a pack of hemp protein.
Brendon McIntosh (community pharmacist) and Brad Lake (rural banker, rugby player — and not actually brothers) got talking about the major issues they were seeing in their respective industries, and with their own health.
Brendon was watching pharmacy customers cycle through lifestyle-related conditions that never improved, inside a healthcare system buckling under the load. Brad, in the rural sector, was seeing the on-the-ground results of dietary and lifestyle change firsthand.
The solution had to be available, scalable, and have a massive impact on human health.
With no idea what we were getting into, The Brothers Green was born.
Farmers' markets, pet food, and hard lessons.
We picked the hardest possible industry to start a business in.
Over the next twelve months we shaped the range that would help us establish hemp as a viable health product. We started at the local farmers' market — selling hemp seed oil and protein powder. For dogs.
At that time hemp seed oil was the only hemp product permitted to be sold for human consumption. Anything else was for animals. You also needed a licence to handle whole hemp seed.
We learnt three things very fast:
- Most people thought hemp would get you high.
- Selling any health supplement as pet food is very difficult.
- It's illegal to market any hemp products online.
We had picked the hardest industry to try and start a business in: small, sceptical, almost impossible to advertise, and illegal for human consumption. Every Facebook ad we tried got blocked.
A food competition, a rejected licence, and a law change — all in the same week.
Sometimes the universe lines things up exactly when you need it to.
A customer recommended we enter a New World food competition. The prize pack was worth $85k and included shelf space across the South Island.
As a rural banker and a pharmacist entering a food competition, we thought we had little chance. Against the odds we made the final — and when we pitched our vision (Canterbury Plains covered in hemp, every Kiwi kid with a hemp snack bar in their lunchbox) we took the top prize.
Then the universe tested us. The article announcing our win came out — and our hemp licence application was rejected for using hemp hearts in the bar. Three days later, the law changed: all hemp seed products were now legal for human consumption. (And, in a twist, illegal as animal feed.)
Quitting the day jobs. Finding our believers.
Most people, especially our families, were against this longshot idea.
We both quit our jobs, handed in the comfortable salary, the company phone, the company vehicle — and went all in on The Brothers Green.
At a Coffee and Jam session in Christchurch, we met three incredible people: Lois Gill, Loudon and Judith Keir. They took a huge punt on us, backed our vision, and invested in the business.
We brought on a good friend from Lincoln University, Michael Burnett, to help launch and grow the business with a new supermarket food range.
Three years of product development. Nine months late. We made it.
Welcome to the food industry: complex, expensive, and unforgiving.
Product development took three times longer than forecast. Making a healthy snack bar that's actually delicious is hard. Compostable packaging is harder. But in October 2019 — only nine months later than expected — The Hempy Bar launched across the South Island.
At the same time we started growing and processing our own hemp. With mates from Lincoln Uni and ASB we formed Mainland Hemp, ordered the de-hulling and oil-pressing equipment, and partnered with Sam Smith and his parents in Culverden.
Growth plans, meet a global shutdown.
February 2020. We came home from Melbourne. The world locked down two weeks later.
By the end of 2019 the team had grown — a marketing manager, distribution for Hempy Bars, hemp protein and hemp seed oil into supermarkets and retailers across NZ, and a new GM for our skincare range, Kōaka.
With Aleshia Johnson leading product formulation, Kōaka took shape. Pharmacies were excited — eczema, acne, rosacea. We secured a deal placing the range in 500 pharmacies.
Then lockdowns dragged. Pharmacies struggled. The 50-year-old distribution company ended our deal. We were sitting on six months of stock with no path forward.
Life is not easy, but I did not think this would ever be so incredibly hard.
Restructured to two people. Back to square one.
Sales slowing. Economy uncertain. Hard calls.
End of 2022, with the challenges mounting, we made the call to restructure. We reduced staff from eight to two full-time (Brad and Aleshia). We closed our store in Central Christchurch. We pulled the Hempy Bar out of production.
Right back to square one.
Aleshia in New Plymouth, me in Christchurch. How did we ever get to this position. And how would we ever get out.
Repositioning. Rebranding. Rebuilding from the garage.
Stop looking at how products are sold. Look at how they're actually used.
For six months, our small but determined duo completely redefined what The Brothers Green stood for. We stopped focusing on how our products were traditionally positioned, and honed in on how customers were actually using them.
Our Nutritional Hempseed Oil, once next to olive oil on supermarket shelves, was repackaged and repositioned as a Joint Support Supplement — and customers were experiencing remarkable improvements.
We launched a reviews programme, ran hemp field trips for Grey Power groups, organised community events, and got back to our roots at local farmers' markets.
We made the incredibly hard decision to sell our home to keep the business afloat. With the help of my partner Ella, we moved the office and dispatch back to our own garage.
The ads finally worked. Growth exploded.
After six years of being shut down, we finally found a way through.
A friend and Digital Marketing Guru, (current Head Of Growth), James Forsyth, sat up with me one night. With the reviews and sales we already had, if we could just get Facebook ads to run, we could grow fast. We stripped the website of any mention of hemp, made some ads, turned them on.
Instead of getting rejected and shut down — this time the ads stayed on. Sales kept climbing.
With Aleshia on maternity leave, we brought on Kristen Schrader and young Joseph Fraser. With her six-month-old Marley in tow, Kristen, Ella, Joseph and I were now in the middle of the fastest business growth we could ever have imagined.
Out of our garage, our one-bedroom office and our small factory in Greendale, we found ourselves producing five times the orders within six weeks.
75,000 products. 21,000 customers. 1,300+ five-star reviews.
Two units in Wainoni. Hemp seed contracted across the South Island. End-to-end, raw to finished.
In the last twelve months, we've moved and expanded our manufacturing into two units in Wainoni, Christchurch. We've produced over 75,000 individual products, served over 21,000 new customers, processed over 50,000kg of hemp seed — and more importantly, we now have over 1,300 five-star reviews.
We contract all our own New Zealand hemp seed across the South Island and process it from raw ingredient through to finished product. We're now positioned to reach millions — if we can keep growing.
Health is changing. Our health is our responsibility.
More money and resources will never solve a lifestyle-disease problem.
We are no longer ignorant to the effects of a modern lifestyle on our general health and wellbeing. We can ignore the causes and symptoms of the damage we do to our bodies — or we can choose to do something about it.
Our health system is struggling because we're on a path of growing increases in lifestyle-related disease. This is a problem more money and resources will never solve.
We have to reverse the trend. And it will not happen through any other means than every one of us taking responsibility for the damage we do to our own health through our own lifestyle.
Our health is our responsibility. Dependence on anything or anyone else to manage or improve it will never be as effective as our own actions.
FOUR VALUES. ONE PHILOSOPHY.
Your body knows how to take care of you — you just have to stop putting crap in it.
Saying no to putting poison in your body every single day is the lowest hanging fruit for better health.
Our health is our responsibility. Dependence on anything or anyone else will never be as effective as our own actions.
Your body, your health, your responsibility. Health without a prescription.
A massive thank you to the following legends.
The last seven years we've had a number of people come in and out of this business — all making their own mark on the company we have today.
Brendon McIntosh · Michael Burnett · Aaron Franks · Alexia Kotzikas · Eden Sloss · Jamie Engelbrecht · Sam Smith · Dave Pringle · Ben Crawford · Hagen Schulte · Natasha Godetz · Eugine Koning · Laura Dalgety · Henni Gang · Sophie Thompson · Raj · Pavani · Liam Pramm · Nick Lake
Lois Gill
Our guardian angelEvery customer we have ever helped, every seed we have planted, every person we have ever employed owes you immensely. You have stood by our dream and believed in us since 2018. You have impacted so many lives — none more than mine. None of this would exist without you.
Your body. Your health. Your responsibility.
Health without a prescription.