Introducing Brian Thomas

Already familiar with the brand, and established devotees of the product, Brian, his wife Linzi and Anna didn’t hesitate to seal the deal when the company appeared on the market in 2018. They became owners and stewards of the brand in September of that year. Brian and Anna, who run the business day-to-day, quickly identified PURE’s 3 brand pillars: Nothing Artificial - Ever; Intensely Delicious Flavours; and Leave only the Lightest Touch on the Environment. The recipe seems to have worked!

Read on to find out more about Brian and the success of PURE New Zealand Ice Cream...

Brian originally hails from the UK and married Linzi in 1990. He studied Management and Marketing at Leicester University and spent 16 years in the Royal Air Force, finishing up as a personnel and finance officer in his mid-thirties in 1997.

Having always wanted to backpack around the world, Linzi convinced Brian to spend 7 months on the road living out of a backpack on 25 US$ per day in 1998-99. After adventures across South America, New Zealand was the second stop on the itinerary. The couple shocked Dean, the Queens Street Backpackers Manager in Auckland, when they rented a Britz Camper through him and casually announced they were going to see the whole of NZ in 2 weeks!

Of course, they didn’t quite manage to see the whole of NZ – but they did take in many of God Zone’s finest sights, finding themselves in Wanaka in September 1998 drinking a “latte bowl” (remember those?) on the lakefront whilst seriously contemplating why they were commuting for up to 4 hours a day around London.

“As we moved on to Australia, China, Thailand, India and Nepal for the next 5 months, it became increasingly apparent that NZ and Wanaka had ruined the rest of our trip…. all we could think about was how we could return and make a living there.” Brian and Linzi returned to Wanaka 1999 and in two weeks bought land in the township, engaged a builder, trades and professionals and started work on an 8 guest room Boutique Lodge.

Back in the UK and working for an Oxfordshire-based Precision Marketing firm to generate cash for the build, Brian managed the build with Linzi via email and a fledging World Wide Web. "The internet hadn’t yet seen the likes of Google and I remember building a crude website for the Lodge that could be picked up by search engines such as Lycos, Red Dog, Alta Vista and CompuServe. You could use programmes downloaded from the internet for a small USD$ fee to boost your rankings as there was no such thing as SEO or SEM.”

Google or no Google, the lodge was an instant success and was runner-up in the 2001 NZ Tourism Awards after only 12 months in operation. Children came along in 2002 and 2003 and the business was sold in 2003 to concentrate on the new family. In 2004, Brian and Linzi built and created another boutique tourist accommodation that achieved Qualmark 5 Star rating.

In 2006 Brian had begun to play a role in marketing a start-up marine accessories business, which went on to expand into the automotive accessories sector in markets in Europe and the USA – most notably winning a supplier contract with Scania in Sweden. With this business well established, Brian became a founding partner in an innovative marketing support company in 2010, picking up small-medium business clients from Invercargill to Auckland.

In 2018, along came the opportunity to purchase PURE New Zealand Ice Cream! “We’re really proud that PURE’s Artisan Team has doubled since we took over the brand and they have won over 20 industry awards since 2018. And despite the headwinds brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and the emerging economic effects of the War in Europe, we’ve increased our NZ supermarket count to around 140, become the premium ice cream supplier to Domino’s nationally and have begun exporting PURE to Japan, where ice cream lovers in Tokyo are now enjoying PURE New Zealand Ice Cream.”

Brian’s role in the business encompasses everything that isn’t production and supply chain related, such as Finance, Marketing, Logistics, Business Development and Account Management - as well as tea and coffee making for the Production Team. And when needs must, Brian can be spotted on the dating machine, forklift or getting the milk in. But as much fun as this appears to be for him, the team generally agree that this should be left to the professionals whenever possible…

Outside his day jobs, Brian is a keen skier, boater, hunter and tramper with his wife and their 2 grown-up children who are now in tertiary education. He’s also a self-confessed news and current affairs junkie!