36 years of delivering wellness

Since 1988, we’ve been delivering wellness across Aotearoa and abroad.

From opening up to the world wide web and moving into our warehouse in Mohua Golden Bay, to stocking our shelves with sustainable products and raising the bar for natural health with strict standards, we’ve always been on a mission to make mindful, healthy choices easier.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane and revisit our most memorable highlights over the last 36 years.

1988: Humble beginnings

HealthPost is born when our founder, Linley Butler, starts selling barley grass to friends out of her home in Mohua Golden Bay.

On a mission to make natural health more affordable and accessible – word soon gets out around the local community, while Linley juggles her kids (Abel – now CEO, Lucy – now Values Lead, and Gus - who was a baby back in 1988), and growing phone/post/fax orders.

Linley reflects;

“My circumstances had changed and I could no longer easily afford the high quality supplements that I’d come to rely on, particularly a barley grass product called ‘Green Magma’ that had made a huge difference to my health. I needed a way to access natural health products affordably, and I needed an income, something I could do at home with three children, including a new baby.

Natural health products had transformed my health personally so I was really motivated to make them more affordable and available to other people as well.

Labelling was inconsistent and sometimes misleading, and the industry unregulated, so people were often understandably confused about what to take. I put a lot of time into helping people make more informed choices about the best product for them. Sometimes the humble down home product without flashy labels or marketing would be the best choice for value and efficacy and I really wanted to get that across to people.”

And some of those longstanding customers are still with us today;

“I've been with you just about as long as you've been running. I started because it was local, and I tried shopping more local. I stayed because the service is good, the products are lovely, very reliable. One thing that I always liked about HealthPost is that you really go the extra mile finding out all the details about a product, always good friendly service, the delivery is always very rapid.”- Nancy, Golden Bay

“I've been a HealthPost customer for 25 years - wow, that's a quarter of a century! It's been great to have such an excellent service available so close to home. I've appreciated the wide range of products, prompt delivery and competitive pricing.” - Susie, Golden Bay

Meytal, our Contact Centre Manager has been working alongside our loyal customers for over a decade; “It's still a joy to be talking to the same customers for more than 10 years now, and to hear how pleased they are with our conservational work, especially through the HealthPost Nature Trust. Over the years we've grown alongside our customers to appreciate the value of creating less waste and giving back to our planet.”

Early 2000’s: Open to the world

Our first website is launched, and we start delivering wellness to doorstops everywhere.

After 20 years, Linley puts the trusted leadership of HealthPost into the hands of her son Abel, daughter Lucy, and their father, Peter.

With a passion for giving back, $1 from every online order is donated to a customer’s charity of choice– leading to over $1 million donated over a decade to worthy causes, from the Yellow-Eyed Penguin Trust to Yoga in Prisons.

And in 2009, our sister brand BioBalance launched- with CoQ10 and 5-HTP as our first products to hit the shelves. As the first natural health brand in Australasia to become B Corp certified, and a growing range today of 30+ sustainable supplements, superfoods and skincare, BioBalance continues to evolve to meet the needs of its community.

Mid 2000’s: People, planet & premises

With increasing orders going out each week, we take on the challenge to scale-up to meet the needs of our customers. We move in to our large, purpose-built premises in Mohua Golden Bay in 2011. With a partly solar-powered warehouse and well-stocked shelves, it’s a chaotic, all-consuming, exciting time of rapid growth.

During this time, sustainability becomes central to everything we do – and we learn a tremendous amount along the way.

We begin offsetting our carbon and planting a thousand trees each year. And in 2017 the HealthPost Nature Trust is born with a vision to create an ecosanctuary where threatened flora and fauna can flourish. Together, with partners Manawhenua ki Mohua and the Department of Conservation, and the local community, we begin protecting and regenerating nature at Wharariki and Onetahua Farewell Spit.

“Imagine a dream team of DOC biodiversity experts, local Iwi, and passionate conservation experts and volunteers collaborating to create a wondrous nature sanctuary in an iconic landscape. It is such a privilege for HealthPost to be funding such tangible change.” – Peter Butler

2017-2021: Shop by your values & Zero Carbon certified

With the rapid expansion of the natural health industry and the rise of greenwashing, along with growing requests from our comunity or high quality, sustainable and ethical products, we decide it's time to set a new bar for natural health in Aotearoa.

So, with the help of natural health experts, industry leaders, suppliers, manufacturers, and our customers – we spend two years developing a comprehensive set of product quality, ingredient, ethical and environmental standards – known back then as our Better Choices Promise.

“Meeting our customers high standards and creating our own has always been important to HealthPost. The ingredient standards we've put in place in recent years are industry-leading. Considering what our customers look for is our highest priority, and setting standards for mindfulness and sustainability are fundamental to the difference we make through the brands we partner with.” – Liz McNamara, Naturopath & Cosmetic Chemist.

We haven’t looked back, continually finding new ways to support Kiwis with their ethical shopping, including:

• Shop Your Way – 40+ dietary and lifestyle filters that let you shop by what matters most, and,
• Mindful Brands – a way to shop by brands that share your ethical values of environmental sustainability, transparency, social responsibility, and eco packaging.

“I’m really proud of the work we’ve done with our product standards and supply chain over the past few years, using our influence and expertise to remove unnecessary chemicals from our bodies and the planet. As a retailer with 36 years’ industry experience and a loyal, mindful customer base, we make it easier for people to shop by their ethical values, and we actively support our brand partners to continue raising the bar in areas like ingredients, packaging, transparency and climate.” – Lucy Butler

And in 2021, we officially became Zero Carbon certified with Ekos. HealthPost had long been factoring carbon into business decision-making, so it was time to get serious about accurately measuring our emissions and offsetting 100% of our footprint through government-verified, local native forest projects – including the ongoing regeneration of our own indigenous carbon forest just 15 minutes from our warehouse.

Today: Our ethical evolution

We continue to find new ways to deliver on our vision to have a lasting, positive impact - listening to you and responding to the needs of our changing world.

Most recently, we launched our Ethical by Nature Promise – to make sure we’re always doing our best by nature and you. Our in-house Naturopaths ‘ETHICS check’ every new product and brand against our six criteria: Eco-friendly, Transparent, Holistic, Ingredient Integrity, Caring, and Sustainable.

We’re also proud to officially be B Corp certified – as the first natural retailer of its kind in Aotearoa to be recognised as a force for good. We’re delighted to join a community of trailblazing ethical businesses worldwide that share the desire to do things better!  You can learn more about our journey to B Corp here.

As we look ahead we’re committed to:

• Continuing to regenerate biodiversity with the HealthPost Nature Trust, building on the successful reintroduction of the pakahā fluttering shearwater to the Wharariki Ecosanctuary over the past 3 years. 

“We’re gathering so much momentum in community-based conservation here in Mohua Golden Bay and are currently focussed on the restoration of the Wharariki Wetland and scoping the translocation of the Pateke (brown teal).” – Lucy Butler

• Welcoming more beautiful brands to our HealthPost family that are creating innovative, sustainable products that give back to people and planet.

Lucy shares, “As big natural health advocates, we love finding wellbeing products with integrity and connecting them with customers who are looking for better choices. Our careful range curation is a big part of our contribution to sustainability. We put in a huge amount of work to cut through the greenwashing and support brands who are making genuinely ethical, high-quality products."

• Connecting with other ethically-minded business, through the likes of the Sustainable Business Network, Businesses for Climate Action, and B Corp, to help address important – and systemic - sustainability matters like waste and freight. Sustainable change is only possible through collective action, and these meaningful partnerships and conversations help pave the way.

Most importantly, we’re grateful for every opportunity to support you with your wellbeing journey – thank you for joining us and making a healthy difference.

Here’s to the next 36+ years!