A Central Otago engineer has found a niche market producing barbecue wood pellets, using waste cherry wood from orchards.

New Zealand has been producing biomass wood pellets for years as a by-product of the timber and forestry industries, but these are just used to heat homes and fuel industrial kilns.

Jacob Freeman discovered there was a huge gap in the market for locally manufactured barbecue wood pellets, and will be one of the first in New Zealand to produce them.

3 Kings Cherries Orchard manager Tim Paulin offered Jacob some space to help progress his ‘Southern Smoke’ business, and supply him the cherry wood.

While the project is small, Tim said he was happy to work alongside Jacob. 

“The business shows potential and hopefully this will benefit both parties in the future.”

In September 2023 Jacob ordered the chipper, hammer mill and pellet mill from China - personally funding the $25,000-$30,000, and has been experimenting with the cherry wood to make the perfect pellet.

“I saw I could make a viable business and decided to take the plunge.”

The machinery is capable of producing 300kg of pellets an hour - the great thing is, you can also use barbecue pellets in home fires, opening up the New Zealand market even further.

Jacob Freeman (left) and 3 Kings Orchardist Tim Paulin with the chipper and hammer mill imported from China to make a new wood fruit by-product. PHOTO: The Central App

Cherry wood is unique in enhancing the natural wood smoke flavour produced by the pellet barbecue, but many other fruit woods, along with natives such as manuka, red beech and rata were also popular.

“I need a bit of diversity, so apricot and apple trees work well too, and I plan to mix some manuka in there as well at some stage.”

Naturally, in a new business, there have been setbacks along the way - no instruction manual from China made life interesting, and despite the communication barrier with the overseas machinery company, Jacob was determined to push through the initial teething issues. 

“Cherry wood is quite hard, and I figured out it wasn’t being compressed enough by the current die that I was using. Compression is what generates the heat that forms the pellets by ‘melting’ the natural lignins in the wood.”

The moisture content of the wood chip was also important - too high and the pellet ends up like a piece of popcorn, too low and they crumble.

He’ll keep chipping away at his project until the perfect barbecue pellet is perfected, and then all going to plan, will launch his product on the market in the next few months.

As well as the opportunity from 3 Kings, and being able to use abundant waste fruit wood onsite, Jacob also collaborated with a Cromwell developer turning an orchard into residential development, by harvesting 300 - 400 cherry trees that would’ve otherwise been sent to landfill.