About us

A little History... how on earth did we stumble into this business?

Robert and Robin (our founders) both hailing from good ol' family farms - Robin from Wakefield near Nelson and Robert from Barrytown out on the wild Westcoast of the south island, eventually met, when they crossed paths in Stoke near Nelson at the ripe age of 15, and have been sticking together ever since, having just celebrated with a big bash for their 63rd wedding anniversary!

Around a whopping three decades ago, back in the epic year of 1991...

the two Robs kicked off their second business selling liquid fertilizer and dairy shed cleaners.

One bright sunny Nelson day during a casual chat on a farm, a client spilled his soil and pasture woes. This chat sparked a lightbulb moment for Robert, aka Bob, making him ponder a fresher approach.

A short while later a serendipitous encounter spun the lives of the two Robs on a wild adventure when one of Bob’s buddy's spilled the news of a seminar in Nelson led by an American named Elaine Ingham, delving into the mysterious realm of the soil food web and soil biology this moment matched perfectly with Bob’s plan to sprinkle some magic on his clients' soil troubles.

This next part of the tale is like a unicorn at DCT and Bob's family lore, Picture this: Bob missed the seminar enrolment boat, but thanks to his military and rugby skills, he ninja-ed his way to the back for some undercover action. His plan to be a silent spy took a hilarious turn as the seminar unfolded, tempting him to jump into the Q&A fray.

If you ever crossed paths with Bob and decided to dive into a chat with him, buckle up! Once he starts rambling about rugby or soils, good luck trying to hit pause on that conversation.

After the seminar, Bob snagged the opportunity to level up as a soil food web advisor, and guess what? He ended up becoming one of the first-ever internationally acclaimed soil food web advisors in New Zealand!

Shortly after, the two Robs changed course on their booming fertilizer and dairy cleaning business and dove headfirst into their new venture.

Embarking on the epic journey of DCT (or Dynamic Compost Tea, as the legends say), they enlisted a small army of some of their 5 kids and in-laws to boost their career horizons, or as I their best looking and favorite child suspect it was a good way for them to get cheap labour!

The initial product we cooked up was supercharging soil biology in massive bio-reactors and giving it a soil spa treatment. It was a hit and rocked the spotlight as our one and only star product for a good while.

We’re always striving to be better and the ingredients we needed were playing hide and seek, we just couldn't find what we needed at the quality we needed them so we rolled up our sleeves and whipped them up ourselves to get the job done.

Now, picture this: with biology buffs in the family wielding microscopes, we dove into a wild experiment to witness how our ingredients danced with the microscopic world. It was like peeking into a crystal ball to predict how these gems would groove once tossed onto the soil with the existing biology.

The outcomes blew our minds, surpassing what we ever dreamt of.

So, we shook things up, cooked up fresh goods - ones that don't just spruce up soil life but transform the soils very essence.

These goodies are like a red carpet for soil critters, letting them thrive and dialing down the not-so-great bits, but wait there’s more they even leveled up the plants' awesomeness, and guess what? The animals chomping on that souped-up grass got a health boost too!

Healthy Soil = Healthy Plants = Healthy Animals and a Healthy You!

After all the trials, loads of research and development, and countless "Eureka!" moments, we're still diving deep into making our products even more awesome.