Hi, I’m Carol and, along with Larry, run the Raumati Beach Village Four Square; we have been operating this food market for the past two years. Prior to this we ran the successful Raumati South Dairy.

Our involvement in food markets began years ago. Larry owned a food market / tearooms in Paekakariki. We met when I went to work for him. We fell in love and married. We were quite well known for Larry and Carol’s pies!

We had a temporary break from food markets when Larry went to work for Feltex, Wellington, and I went to work in a pharmacy. However, it wasn’t long before I had the opportunity to work in the Raumati South Dairy. The owners wanted to sell and as I saw a lot of potential in the little dairy, I decided to buy it myself. Larry came to work part-time for me, which soon increased to full-time!

Raumati South was a wonderful little community. We really enjoyed improving the dairy, which became a wonderful ‘hub’ for the community. In the fifteen years we ran the dairy we made some amazing friends and got to know most of our regulars by first name. We even did the odd delivery if people were sick. We had great staff, most of who stayed with us for over ten years. This is what Larry and I loved most about the job, getting to know people and their families. Often customers would share stories on what was going on in their lives.

The time came to sell the Raumati South Dairy and we shifted to the larger and more central Raumati Beach Village. We love the atmosphere and feeling of Raumati Beach Village and are enjoying getting to know a whole new group of customers. We look forward to creating the same special ‘hub’ in Raumati Beach as we had at our previous store.