Tongan handmade coconut oil showcase at Pasifika Festival Featured
Jessica Afeaki
28 March, 2017. Jessica Afeaki and her coconut oil business from Tonga was among the businesses from across Polynesia and Melanesia chosen by Pacific Trade & Investment (PT&I) to showcase their products at the Pasifika Fesitival.
Twenty-five small and medium businesses from Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, the Marshall Islands, Palau, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea were given the opportunity by PT&I to visit New Zealand on a special trade mission and to take part at the Pasifika Fesitival last weekend.
Jessica Afeaki hoped the visit would get her handmade coconut oil skin care products on New Zealand shelves.
Afeaki completed a double diploma in marketing and advertising at Auckland's University of Technology.
She now employs three people who help her make soaps, moisturisers and body oil in her village Fangaloto Nuku'alofa.
The biggest business challenges she was faced with were slow working culture, sourcing raw ingredients and finding commercial printing for packaging, she said.
Jessica Afeaki's husband has been helping her make her coconut oil skin care range since she started the business four years ago as a hobby.
Afeaki hoped to be inspired by New Zealand businesses. "New Zealand is like an oyster. There are so many things businesses here do so well," she said.
-Stuff
