INDUSTRY PEOPLE
KEEPING IT IN
THE FAMILY
Grandad Ben Capper had a
promise once, and he kept it.
Back in 1975, Grandad was busy in his basement
workshop in the family home. There was the patter of
seven pairs of tiny feet upstairs and the tinker of metal in
the downstairs quarters.
Robert Muldoon was the then-Prime Minister and small
family businesses were sprouting all around the country.
These small business had good foundations, then.
They were to survive some fairly serious economic events
in the ‘70s, including the oil crises of 1973 and of 1978-9.
Muldoon was later to become all about “Think Big” but it
was the small family-run businesses that got a foothold
in the local economy.
As a nation we were eating meat and three vege. Our
consumption of these increased noticeably in the late
seventies. The average Kiwi alone consumed 57kg of
potatoes per year, 8kg of carrots and meat consumption
rose to 57kg per person per year.
Grandad knew all about it.
He knew that we were an agricultural nation still. We had
grass to cut, soil to till, crops to harvest and we had a
strong dairying sector, and boy did we have a long way to
go until we had quality equipment that could be created
or sourced or imported to New Zealand.
Initially, Grandad began the business by producing a
range of grader blades. The blades would go out into
the world to dig, scrape and move earth, brandishing the
name Farmgard.
The name Farmgard was borne out of the two sides
to the business: grader blades, and Grandad’s other
interest, garden sheds. The original business was called
Farm and Garden Equipment, hence there being no letter
“u” in gard.
A Berti mulcher in action.
When Scott Capper, his grandson, finished school in
2005, he decided to join the business immediately.
His father was there too, and Scott remembers from a
very young age being taken out on-site with dad, still in
nappies. Scott’s father was a trained diesel mechanic,
but liked the idea of carving a family business.
Now, 40 years down the track, there’s things the family
business want to do, and also don’t want to do. There’s
a strong sense of wisdom and a desire to “stick to their
guns” in terms of what their long-term vision is.
Essentially, Farmgard is an importer and distributor of top
This is a monthly series on businesses in our industry. We profile one business per month to find out how our hard-working
business owners, employees and contractors manage to run these specialist businesses and what makes them tick in the
New Zealand trade business environment. These are the stories of our CAM people.
w w w. c a m m a g a z i n e . c o . n z
CAM September 2019
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