With growth like Waitomo Group has seen over the past five years comes a lot of hard work. To the point where it’s rare for the team to stop, reflect and recognise what they’ve achieved.
But that’s exactly what they did in November as they took out the Supreme Award at the Waikato Chamber of Commerce Business Awards. They also took out the Sustainability Award, and the Business Growth & Strategy Award.
Group Manager Customer Experience Greta Shirley explains Waitomo didn’t enter the awards for the external recognition, though that has been hugely rewarding.
“We entered for the team. We run really hard and fast and we’re always on to the next thing. We don’t often stop and take stock of what we’ve been doing. This was an opportunity to celebrate our collective success.
“Waitomo has seen exponential growth over past few years and we felt this year we needed to take stock... to pause and reflect on what we have achieved and to celebrate that. We tell the team all the time how well they are doing, and for them to receive this external validation is very special.”
The Kiwi-owned and operated company was founded in 1947 by Desmond Ormsby in Te Kuiti. Today Waitomo is one of New Zealand’s largest independent fuel suppliers. 77 years on, Waitomo is owned by the third generation of the Ormsby family.
Desmond’s vision was a company built around honesty and integrity and those values remain front of mind today at Waitomo. Following in his father’s footsteps, Grey Ormsby worked tirelessly to ensure Waitomo’s customers benefited from innovative supply solutions, outstanding service, and a fairer fuel price. Now owned by his son Jimmy Ormsby who joined the team in 2003, Waitomo is in rapid national expansion mode.
“There is no stopping us,” says Greta. “We’ve just opened two new sites this week and there will be two more before Christmas. And the pipeline for 2025 is equally ambitious. We want to keep building and taking over more sites. We are 100 per cent focused on growth. Our mission is to be Kiwis’ first choice for fuel.”
The company’s market share has doubled over the past five years and they’re aiming to double that again.
Alongside their growth goals, sustainability is an important focus for Waitomo.
“Yes, we are fuel company, but we have a big focus on the ‘E’. We’ve done some really cool things in E such as installing the first hydrogen network in Australasia with partnership with Hiringa, and we’re working with WEL Networks to install EV charging stations at all new highway fuel stops.”
They’re also working on measuring their emissions and will be setting science-based targets to do their bit to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
And at the same time, they are committed to providing fuel at a fairer price to Kiwis.
“How we deliver on the social side of sustainability is even more important to us. Where there’s not a lot of competition in the fuel market, we distrupt that market, and we see prices coming down immediately. Nelson is a good example fof that. The Commerce Commission called out Nelson as area for over inflated fuel pricing because there wasn’t a lot of competition there. We opened our first site there this week and we immediately saw a price decline.”
Each time Waitomo opens a new site, all the team, including CEO Simon Parham and owner Jimmy Ormsby spend time on the other unmanned forecourt, pumping fuel and talking with people.
“We listen to people who can only afford to put $10 in their car at at time. In this cost of living environment, it’s more important than ever that we do what we can to keep fuel prices down.”
Waitomo was also a finalist in the People & Culture category.
“We’ve been very intentional about our culture. Desmond Orsmby founded the company based on his values around people, performance, and price. People are fundatmental to what we do. Our success is related to the people before us and those here now.
“We have an ambitious strategy for the business but how we get there is equally important. With that in mind, we set what we call ‘Waitomo behaviours’... how we expect our people to show up each day, how we recruit, how we manage performance, how we hold each other to account. We’re competitive, curious, we’re all about continuous improvement while ensuring we look after our wellbeing and put family first.”
They provide for ongoing learning and development and there are team activities on a regular basis such as cooking lunch together and listening to external guests such as one who spoke about financial literacy recently.
“We take great pride in stewarding the business. We’re honoured to have the Ormsby family let us do that. Jimmy actually took all the Business Awards trophies up to his father Grey who is 85 now and he couldn’t believe what we had achieved. They are a very humble whānau and were so moved by the recogition.”
Waitomo won’t be resting on their laurels.
“We think we do things well, and if people are doing better than us, we want to learn from them. We’ve had other finalists and winners reach out to us and vice versa to catch up and learn from each other. If we’re lifting each other up, we’re lifting the whole region.”
