From covering ground to covering crackers
Top Gore runner Millie McFadzien, 17, has turned her athletic advancement to food design, creating and marketing a smoked eel pate made from Southern-caught tuna.
The St Peter's College student has had a successful week, pitching her pate to business experts in Invercargill and placing in the top 10 at a national cross-country competition days later.
Millie finished ninth out of 120 runners in the senior girls 4000m race at the secondary schools cross-country championships in Whangarei on Saturday, with a time of 15min 29sec.
Days earlier, Southland Business Chamber members were "blown away" by her pitch for the eel pate, she said.
It was initially her father's idea, after seeing something similar on an episode of Country Calendar .
She then engaged supplier Waituna Eel with an idea to resell its Lake Ellesmere eels on the international market, but was redirected to the idea of a pate by company chief executive Calvin Claridge.
Millie then connected with Invercargill chef Ethan Flack and together they devised a recipe.
"It's good on crackers and all that," she said.
Her marketing company is called The Lost Larder and the agency Naked Creative has donated its time, creating the label and olive-green brand design.
Millie was also fortunate to have the support of Southland signwriter Creation Signs who made her two pull-up banners, T-shirts and labelling for the pitch.
Bluff fisheries company Ocean Beach also gave her some start-up funds for the project.
The project is part of her school business class, as well as the national Young Enterprise scheme competition, which is a charity-funded programme that fosters and provides mentoring for business ideas of senior high school students for a year.
Millie has ideas for other rare edible products under The Lost Larder, such as rabbit heart pate.
She is looking to engage a food scientist to list the nutritional information on the packaged product, and potentially an industrial kitchen to seriously carry on with this venture.
She has that to look forward to along with her running, as her top-10 finish meant she qualified for the NZ Secondary Schools Team that will compete on the Gold Coast, Queensland in September.
Of her race on Saturday, she said it was "quite tough" as the course was steep, hilly and muddy.
The following day, her Southland mixed team won the relay race, as well.
Pre-orders for the eel pate can be sent to thelostlarder@gmail.com.
ella.scott-fleming@alliedpress.co.nz
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