By Chris Harrowell

Copyright times

East Auckland’s Ormiston Senior College is fast becoming a hub of budding future business talent.

The Times has previously reported on several of the school’s groups taking part in the annual Young Enterprise Scheme, which is designed to give young Kiwis the experience of starting and running their own business.

They included the group named Valeora, which created culturally-designed table runners made from recycled, eco-friendly materials.

Another group, Viti Initiative, created a boardgame named ‘Bula Earthy’ to donate to underprivileged children in Fiji as well as UV-detecting stickers designed to help protect children from harmful sun exposure.

And the Sustain-a-Bite business group created sustainable meat trays from natural ingredients and with production processes that foster sustainability.

The latest Ormiston Senior College business group to rise to the top as part of the Young Enterprise Scheme is called Herbal Expresso.

It’s comprised of pupils Shanaiya Lata, who serves as chief executive, Polina Gontcharova, as marketing director, finance director Shreya Harakh and Simon Nguyen.

“Each of our members has been selected from the school’s business curriculum teachers, who looked for the best of the best in the classes to participate in the Young Enterprise Scheme, which provides youth the opportunity to present their full skills and capabilities in a national-level competition,” Shanaiya says.

“Our product began with the idea of a large level of energy drink consumption among high school and university students to keep them engaged.

“When conducting our research, we also established that coffee has the same or similar purpose of an energy boost.

“From this, we then played around with the idea until we realised that whilst many herbal teas are on the market, there are not many options for herbal coffees.

“This led to us creating our herbal coffee blends, crafted to benefit consumers’ health whilst providing them with their desired energy boost.”

Shanaiya says the group’s business goals are to provide students with a healthy alternative to harmful energy drinks.

“When crafting our products, we are also establishing a sense of confidence in what we put into our bodies, as we know all the ingredients are naturally- or ethically-sourced and are made in an A-grade kitchen.

“Currently, our ‘Citrus Charge’ blend sells for $11.99, whilst our ‘Mocha Bliss’ sells for $14.99.

“We also plan on expanding our business by producing a ‘Golden Comfort’ blend, which is used to focus on immunity.

“Our products can be found on our Instagram, but also at Skazka, at 16 Kingdon Street in Newmarket.”