Having been in the business for nearly 25 years, Kiwi natural products business, NatureBee CEO Keren Cook shares how they have remained a household name for two decades now and how they plan remain in the industry for years to come.

In the past two decades, family-owned business, NatureBee has been one of the leading companies in New Zealand to provide natural products. Now, Cook is taking over her father’s role in the business as they head into the 21^st century.

“I guess it was my time to throw my hat in the ring,” says Cook.

Prior to stepping into the role of CEO at NatureBee, Cook has always been on the “edges” of the business and understanding by “osmosis” thanks to her father.

Over the past 20 years, Cook says NatureBee has been following a successful framework since and they plan to continue and follow it.

“Like any business, when you come in and you look at it with a fresh lens, you do bring your own take or your own skill set to a business and you see opportunity through your own set of eyes,” she says.

“But you also have to be respectful about the legacy and the things that are successful and the things that are working and have an appreciation for the things that are working.”

Heading into the business and taking on the big boss role, Cook says it is still a learning experience every day for her as there was no textbook handover on the role.

But Cook says she is very thankful her father is still heavily involved with the business to help her learn as the company continues to grow.

“He’s 77 and he’s a Boomer, so he’s way more conservative than me. So, we’ve got a Gen X and a Boomer working side by side. And he’s seen the business through peaks and troughs and gets the bell curve of the sales cycle and seasonality,” she adds.

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Because he is older, Cook can’t help but realise that her father is more risk adverse and sticks to tried and true when it comes to the business.

Whereas Cook wants to try new things for the business and focusing on building brand awareness, where as her father is more about sales and conversions.

“I bring those nuances to NatureBee, which is more the storytelling, bring the love to the brand, take the consumer on a journey,” she adds.

“We’ve been able to almost go a little grassroots since I’ve been back on board and tell more stories, start our podcasts at source and interview industry leaders and get down to some nitty-gritty thinking and conversations.”

In a way, Cook sees it as an opportunity to grow the brand and mature it, bringing personality and addressing their difference in the industry.

The decision to mature the brand came at the right time as during Covid, NatureBee had experienced growth like never before.

Between 2019 to 2021, NatureBee had recorded a total revenue increase of 277 percent and an online revenue increase of 740 percent.

Cook says at the time, many consumers were taking a real interest and responsibility for their health and wellness and during this period, NatureBee was already creating content and messaging that catered this demographic.

“It’s just understanding the changing needs of our customers over time,” she says.

A large part of the success of NatureBee in the earlier days was their designated call centre, and though the numbers for their call centre drops, Cook is aware of the opportunity the likes of their websites as on the market.

“We’re always on the lookout for ways to either entice a different kind of customer or to cross sell to an existing customer of ours and represent bee pollen in attractive ways look at line extensions and just opportunities to hero bee pollen and sort of appetising nutritional ways that are kind of current and nutritional,” Cook adds.

“I think that will be the way of the future for us.”

The growth the company has seen in the past few years, has opened the opportunity for NatureBee to go global, hitting the Australian and US markets.

With the expansion overseas, NatureBee has found themselves moving their logistics outside of New Zealand and into Australia as they work towards “mainstreaming bee pollen”.

“It’s really hard growing a business outside of the country that you live in and how do you actually do that? I think the only way you can do that is to lean on the expertise of others in market in those other places,” she says.

Cook compares her leadership style at NatureBee as a flat business that ignores the traditional hierarchical style, allowing her to obtain people who are “smarter” and can add a lot of value to the business.

Despite the evolution of NatureBee and how they approach business, the company will remain close knit to their roots as a family-owned business that continues to strive to be a household name within New Zealand.