Artemis sales and marketing manager Rebecca Flintoft (left)
and managing director Sandra Clair are passionate about
natural healthcare. Photo by Linda Robertson.
Negotiating with potential customers in bustling Asian
cities is a far cry from collecting herbs in the tranquil
Central Otago landscape.
But Sandra Clair, the founder of Dunedin-based natural health
company Artemis, can easily make the transition between the
Ms Clair, a traditional Swiss herbalist and qualified health
practitioner, launched the company in 1998, creating a range
of natural, certified organic herbal tea, body care and
She had been trained academically in herbal medicine and also
had the opportunity to do a three-year apprenticeship with a
Swiss Catholic nun who taught her herbal remedy traditions
that went back many centuries.
In Switzerland, she said, natural healthcare was part of
normal healthcare for the general public.
Ms Clair came to New Zealand in 1995 and ''really loved the
place''. She was particularly impressed by the quality of
plants, as they were very potent.
Initially, she was working one-on-one with patients, making
individual prescriptions for them, before she was approached
by health stores in Dunedin asking if they could stock her
products, because people had been asking for them.
That was ''quite a mind-boggling proposition'' but also
''fantastic'', as it showed there was both a niche and a need
for good-quality herbal medicine, she said.
It was time to do it on a bigger scale so she ''took the
plunge'' and, with a friend, started Artemis. Her friend
pulled out soon after, due to an accident, and Ms Clair
carried on alone.
The business had grown exponentially, collecting awards along
the way, including both the Deloitte Fast 50 award for the
fastest growing manufacturer in Otago and the lower South
Island last year, and the ethics award at the 2012 Westpac
Otago Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Awards.
The company's aim was to provide natural family healthcare
based on traditional European formulations and modern
scientific research to increase health, vitality and quality
Artemis products were stocked in health stores and pharmacies
throughout New Zealand, and the company began exporting in
It now sends its products to Singapore, China, Malaysia and
Hong Kong and was negotiating with some companies in Taiwan.
Continued growth in Asia was one of the company's aims.
The Asian market was important as it provided the volume the
company could not get in New Zealand and also natural
healthcare was very much part of daily life, and the concept
of herbs was ''not scary''.
Sales and marketing manager Rebecca Flintoft said it had
taken a long time in New Zealand to ''really get traction''
with educating people about natural healthcare, the strength
of herbal remedies and convincing them to use them.
Mrs Flintoft, who joined Artemis in 2009, came from a finance
background which included running her own mortgage-broking
company. She discovered that organics and natural health was
a ''very, very fast-moving business''.
The majority of the Artemis team - there are eight staff
including Ms Clair and Mrs Flintoft - did not come from a
natural health background but now all ''live and breathe
it'', she said.
Mrs Flintoft project-managed a rebranding strategy, working
with another Dunedin business, BrandAid+, to take it from
what she described as a ''cottagey'' look to a brand to take
it to the next step to grow the export market and get more
into ''mainstream'' in New Zealand.
In 2005, the company bought its own premises in Fingall St
and refurbished it to suit its requirements.
Every year, the company increased the amount of products it
could source in New Zealand.
Ms Clair was an active supporter of organic agriculture in
New Zealand and wanted to foster that initiative.
She came from a valley in Switzerland where herbs had been
grown for ''literally hundreds of years'', yet there was no
tradition for New Zealand in herb growing, she said.
While she wanted to source as much as possible in New
Zealand, what she could not obtain she sourced from alpine
regions of Europe.
Ms Clair said she would rather sacrifice margins than quality
of product because people's health was ''first and foremost''
and she would not compromise on quality.
From the beginning, Artemis had ''moved very much in the
right direction'', she said.
She had no regrets about moving to New Zealand and felt like
she had contributed to the country ''in return for having a
wonderful life here''. She was also happy to have been able
to contribute in such a way that she was ensuring a tradition
The business continued to grow, despite the economic
recession, Mrs Flintoft said.
Dunedin was an ideal location as it was close to Central
Otago, where a lot of herbs were collected, she said.
Mrs Clair had found the support from the local business
community to be ''outstanding''.
She was also grateful for the support of the Dunedin City
Council's Economic Development Unit and New Zealand Trade and
She was fortunate to have ''very capable'' people working at
Artemis and her role had moved to one that was predominantly
supervisory, along with product development, education and
travel - ''because people do want to see the founder''.
She still enjoyed nothing better than heading to Central
Otago and collecting herbs for her recipes, she said.