Do you have a stockpile of broken vineyard posts?

A message from Repost founders, Greg and Stu, on best stockpile practices for wineries

Farmers, Kyle and Emma, tell us their experience with Repost posts on their 700ha Tararua Properties.

Liam Garlick is our General Manager and the glue that holds the Repost day-to-day runnings together in Marlborough. We decided to sit down and get him to answer some questions.

Lesley has been following Repost since the start and was stoked when the team finally rocked up to the Pernod site, ripping it their waste and getting it to farmers. We thought we’d give her a quick-fire Q&A!

We are delighted to be nominated for the 2024 WasteMINZ Awards for Excellence. We are nominated for two categories: ‘Best initiative to encourage reuse, repair or repurpose’ alongside Hawkes Bay Council, and ‘Best resource recovery or value recovery initiative’.

We were recently fortunate to meet Sustaina Grow at Fielddays. Their unwavering passion for turning wool into a viable product is inspiring, and at a time when wool needs creativity and innovation this company is doing just that!

Over the years, we’ve accumulated a significant number of damaged vineyard posts, which we’ve been stockpiling to ensure they don’t end up in landfill while waiting for a sustainable solution. Repost has stepped in to solve two critical problems.

"Over any given year, you can see up to four percent breakage in some vineyards. And when you look at the size of the industry and Marlborough, that's a lot of posts. We're talking millions of posts out there."

Repost: Using No.8 wire mentality to recycle CCA treated timber posts. Get to know our members and what motivates them to be part of WasteMINZ.

Meet Lesley Coppell, married to Greg’s (founder) brother, Nick. Lesley and Nick run the Pahiatua depot, a great opportunity to start getting what we saw as a great product into the Lower North Island.

“Farmers just get it, and I wouldn’t be trying to sell it to any other group of people really. They’re just easy people to explain it to and understand it.”

Greg features in a Stuff article following Fieldays.

Repost recycles broken vineyard trellis posts for on-farm fence lines.

What started four years ago as a cost effective solution for Dansy and Greg Coppell’s 500ha Sheep and Beef farm is now a thriving business.

Dansy talks to Shepherdess about how she successfully juggles motherhood, their sheep and beef farm ‘Springers Block’ and Repost, which in Gregs words “D’s tireless work makes me look good!”

It’s clear (like many women will relate) it takes good time management, a village and a good coffee, and of course bucket loads of passion!

A NEW Repost 'hub' in Spring Creek will enable more Marlborough grapegrowers to divert their broken vineyard posts from stockpiles and landfill, to instead be repurposed into low-cost fencing posts.

- Winepress, p19

Talk about a win-win. On one side you have the wine industry, chasing a zero-waste-to-landfill target but facing multiple challenges, including the headache of broken viticulture posts, which accumulate in piles on New Zealand vineyards every year (they can’t be burned or mulched because the timber is treated).

The episode unfolds into a great catch-up with Greg Coppell from Repost who has been involved in donating alongside HBRC and Fed Farmers recycled fence posts to rebuild east coast sheep & beef farmers fence lines with over 13,000 recycled vineyard posts which led to them taking home the Beef + Lamb NZ Gallagher innovation award.

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After the cyclone, Repost owner Greg Coppell took a call from the regional council asking for help. He sent his foreman north to oversee operations, and recruited more staff to start picking the posts out from massive piles of silt and debris.

Supporting Cyclone Gabrielle relief efforts and as part of the Hawke’s Bay Silt Recovery Taskforce, Repost Fence Posts have to date recycled 12,400 fence posts from orchards and vineyards severely damaged during the cyclone.

There is a significant amount of damaged tanalised or treated timber posts and wire from horticultural and viticultural properties since Cyclone Gabrielle. While thousands of these posts have been collected since the cyclone, the HBRC Taskforce has partnered with Repost to repurpose these posts into Sustainable Fencing to be reused. Federated Farmers are then donating these onto the local community. It’s a team effort.