We are really proud of our strawberry operation and equally proud of our reputation as a premium berry growing company with a name for quality, delicious products grown with care and picked with pride.
Matakana Berry Co & Gala Berry are part of Fresh Food Exports which has been growing in Omaha Flats since 1991. In early 2016 Fresh Food Exports was bought by Grant & Lynda Ashby who are are extremely experienced “hands on” strawberry growers who grew under the Gala Berry brand in Coatesville/Albany. Their two children Matt and Tashi also work at Fresh Food Exports and are an important part of our business. Grant & Lynda have been growing strawberries since 1981, are family orientated and have an absolute passion for producing quality fruit and for New Zealand producing the world’s best!
Like the berries, Lynda & Grant’s very loyal team at Matakana Berry Co & Gala Berry are also hand-picked.
Together they run Matakana Berry Co & Gala Berry to bring you the very best strawberries. The team works with nature to grow delicious fruit in a natural environment with a minimum amount of horticultural intervention. They use their many years of experience to achieve excellence by working with the natural environment rather than attempting to control it. Their berries are sun-ripened and bursting with flavour, and they just love them!
Grant & Lynda are the passion behind our strawberries! You will always find Grant in a Tractor, or feeling the soil between his toes. Lynda is normally at the packing table with our team of happy packers, making sure that our customers get only the best quality strawberries.
Toni is our accounts and administration person at Galaberry/Matakana Berry Co. She looks after all things that involve bits of paper and numbers. As a side line, Toni is also responsible for our Food Safety Programme & Compliancy requirements.
Our Human Resources Team are our resident "mother hens" and they take all our staff under their wings. Their role at Matakana Berry Co is not just human resources, but a bit of social worker and camp mother. Our HR Team ensures that the "human" factor is first and foremost in their work.
About Omaha & Matakana
The Omaha Flats region in Matakana was identified in the 1960s as having premium soils capable of growing a wide ranges of crops. The region also has the advantage of harvesting earlier than the traditional areas in Auckland because of its high sunshine hours. In addition, being coastal and therefore being in close proximity to the sea, the Omaha area has a much lower chance of frosts in winter.
Over the last 35 years we have worked very hard to grow sustainably, improve our horticultural methods and to reduce our carbon footprint. To achieve this we regularly review the latest technology and research, our methods and our procedures. We aim to review and reduce our water usage and waste, we use alternative weed and pest control methods where possible, we recycle all office and farm waste, we have installed and use efficient water and power appliances and purchase recycled consumables and equipment wherever possible. We also aim to purchase products and services that are made locally and in an ethical manner.
Sustainable & Quality...Read More About Our Quality Guarantee
Our berries are hand-picked and packed every day so you can get freshest produce possible.
Strawberries are delicate and are vulnerable to heat damage so we developed specialised cooling facilities on our farm to chill the fruit to the absolute, perfect temperature.
Our packhouse is a custom designed packing facility for strawberries in New Zealand. Every step is designed to maintain an optimal temperature and our packhouse incorporates the best possible food safety practices. Our growing and packing operation sees all products packed to both domestic and international food safety standards.
We are audited annually so you can be rest assured we have harvested and grown our crops using the best known practices for production, packaging and distribution. Our robust quality assurance program provides 100% traceability and accountability from crop to you, the customer. In 2019 we became Global Gap Certified which we are very proud of! In 2020 we also became GRASP Certified!
We are proud of the following food safety certifications we hold: