Summary
In this episode of The Chris and Sam Podcast, Sam sits down with Grant from Kiwi-Econet at Fieldays 2025 to talk about his game-changing invention: the world’s first edible bale net! 🚜🐄
Say goodbye to plastic waste and hello to safer, greener farming. Grant shares how years working on oil rigs inspired this eco-friendly innovation, the story behind its creation, and plans for global domination.
If you care about the environment, animal welfare, or just love a good Kiwi Innovation, you don’t want to miss this one!
Tune in now and find out why everyone—from local farmers to folks in Europe and the US—is chasing after Kiwi-Econet! 💚🌏
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Show Transcript
This transcript was generated by an AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you have questions about any of the information found here, please reach out to us.
Sam [00:00:21]:
Hey, guys. Sam here at Fieldaz 2025 and I’m here with Grant from Kiwi-Econet. This is a, I’m going to say, revolutionary product. It’s helping the environment by, I think, keeping plastic out of the ecosystem. But Grant’s going to talk all about it. What is Kiwi-Econet all about?
Grant [00:00:37]:
So Kiwi-Econet is an eatable bale net. You don’t even have to take it off the bale. All animals can eat it. So what I’m doing is getting away from the plastic net that wraps the bale and I’ve come up with a fibre juke yarn that’s an edible bao in it.
Sam [00:00:52]:
That just sounds like a great product. I’m not a farmer, I’m not claiming to be a farmer. When and how did you come up with this idea?
Grant [00:01:01]:
I used to work on the oil rigs as a diver and sitting in a decompression chamber for about 27 years in a. Yeah, 28 days in a chamber. Do a lot of thinking in there and come home with a bit of an idea. Talk to a couple of farmers and they says, yeah, work on something like this. And now I’ve got the world chasing me, going to Europe, Switzerland, Europe and America next week to promote it over there.
Sam [00:01:30]:
So is there nothing like this currently on the world market?
Grant [00:01:33]:
I’m the first one in the world.
Sam [00:01:35]:
And how long did it take you to go from idea to what we’re seeing here?
Grant [00:01:39]:
So I’ve been doing this for about five years now. I first started, I hand knitted. Well, me and my partner hand knitted 50 meters of this net to see what we come up with. And then once more, I come up, put it through the baler and thought, wow, I’ve come up with something here. So then someone said to me, well, why don’t I take it to the Waimumu field days? So I took it there and I won it there and all the money that I won from that, I put it through the Westpac helicopter, donated it to them, and it’s just created from there. It’s just World’s chasing me, man.
Sam [00:02:12]:
That’s an amazing story and a great product. When it goes through the baler in a traditional setup, is there any change that has to be made?
Grant [00:02:19]:
No baler, it goes through any baler. You don’t have to do any changes at all.
Sam [00:02:23]:
So at the moment, are you doing this at scale or is it still sort of prototype stage? What stage are you in?
Grant [00:02:28]:
No, we’re up to full production now. It’s all on the market this season. Coming.
Sam [00:02:33]:
Cool. What’s been the biggest hurdle through this whole process?
Grant [00:02:37]:
Nothing. Yeah, it’s been a lot of hard. A lot of hard, hard work and a lot of money and I’m hoping very soon it’s going to pay off.
Sam [00:02:47]:
Any pushback from anyone?
Grant [00:02:48]:
I’ve had not. Not one negative. Nothing negative.
Sam [00:02:52]:
Yeah, I, you know, can’t see what a negative thing would be for this product.
Grant [00:02:58]:
It’s all pretty good, as you should know. This is the plastic that I got on my hand. It’s just no good for the animals and the pictures that I’ve got here, it gets bound up in the cows guts and they can’t pass it is where my stuff, they eat it. It’s a natural fibre and it all goes straight through the animal.
Sam [00:03:16]:
That’s very cool. We’re trying something new this year at field days. I’ve got this little sack of questions here and I want you to pick two of them and answer one of them. It’s nothing heavy, just simple. You just pick two and the one that you want to answer, just read it out and I hate plastic. Is that the one you want to go with? Hang on, Axle. Second one might be better. I’m not sure.
Grant [00:03:40]:
Well, if you’re a pet here, it says here, if your pet could talk, what would your complaints most be? Well, it’s like all animals at the moment, they can’t digest plastic. Plastic in New Zealand or plastic in the world is bad and we all know that. And I’ve gone back to a natural fibre.
Sam [00:04:01]:
Yeah. It’s really blown me away that this wasn’t a product before you guys.
Grant [00:04:06]:
Yeah. And first one in the world, like I said, an eatable bale Net. Kiwi-Econet.
Sam [00:04:12]:
This is a great story. Number eight wire story here from New Zealand. Where can people find out more about.
Grant [00:04:18]:
Kiwieconet.nz
Sam [00:04:22]:
Is it for sale? Who’s stocking this currently?
Grant [00:04:25]:
I’m working on a distributor as we speak it, but all the details are with me at the moment.
Sam [00:04:30]:
Awesome. In the next 12 months, what are your plans? World domination.
Grant [00:04:35]:
Yeah. Yeah. Watch the space.
Sam [00:04:39]:
Awesome. The feedback you said is amazing. Do you think it’s changing the way farmers are thinking about how the bales are wrapped?
Grant [00:04:46]:
Yes, exactly. And for the animal welfare, for their environment, it’s just, it’s a win, win.
Sam [00:04:53]:
So obviously this has been such a good idea coming to Field Days.
Grant [00:04:57]:
Yes, I was here last year. I got second in the innovation for that. And I’ve come back again just to promote it again. And seeing all these farmers and all the people that coming up to me and thanking me. And I’ve got Country Calendar this weekend coming up, so keep everyone watch that. It’ll be good, man.
Sam [00:05:17]:
A couple of people we’ve spoken to already today have got a lot of publicity jacked up for their products. The Kiwi leather people were doing amazing things. Kiwi-Econet here right now doing even better stuff with this. Thank you so much, Grant, for taking the time to talk to us.
Grant [00:05:34]:
Thank you and thank everyone else. Come and see me at the Field Days.
Sam [00:05:38]:
Awesome.
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