Our recipe
Thanks to the ~85 organisations and ~50 residents around Pōneke who have signed up to our food scrap collection/drop-off services, we end up with heaps of compost to go around. Most of our compost we donate to local community gardens, marae and schools. The rest we sell to home gardeners or use on our urban farm in Newtown to grow kai for the community.
Our compost is made with a mixture of food scraps, donated arborist mulch (from Wellington Tree Services) and donated coffee chaff (from Coffee Supreme or L’Affare). We minimise the potential for contamination by persistent chemicals and microplastics by not accepting or composting any fruit stickers or ‘compostable plastics’ which can leak residues, and by not accepting grass clippings which may be contaminated with agrochemicals.
Over 5 to 8 months, our team of staff and volunteers manually process and turn the food scraps into beautiful biodiverse compost that is teeming with beneficial bacteria, fungi, creepy crawlies and full of mauri. It also has a low carbon footprint since we collect the food scraps using e-bikes and process everything by hand. We bag up our compost for sale in reused grain sacks (courtesy of the Garage Project) which can be returned to us for further reuse - closing the loop.
Our formulation is ideal for constructing new landscape garden beds (mixed with regular soil) or for improving soil conditions in existing beds (as a mulch on the surface or dug in). Suitable for all plant types including annuals, trees, shrubs and natives. Use gloves and ideally a face mask to reduce risk of ingesting spores. If you’re growing seeds, we recommend sifting the compost first to remove larger chunks of wood.
As an additional safeguard, we have recently started testing our compost and consulting with soil biology experts to ensure we produce high quality compost that has optimal levels of carbon and nitrogen, micro-nutrients, and a balanced microbiome. We think our compost is the best on the block! The worms agree.
Buy our compost
If you’d like to get your hands on our living compost, please fill in our order request form below to tell us your preferred amount, collection time and any other requirements. We'll confirm your order and provide collection and payment instructions.
Premium compost: $25 per 40L (limited supply from our HotRot machine)
Standard compost: $20 per 40L (from the farm)
We accept payment via bank transfer only.
Kaicycle Inc
15-3971-0068124-01
Please include your initials and ‘compost’ in the reference field.
We offer a 20% discount for staff, volunteers, Community Services Card holders, and subscribers to our food scrap collection/drop-off service. We also offer discounts for larger quantities.
Important things to note:
Pick up from Hospital Rd involves carrying 40 L (approx. 20 kg) bags of compost. Usually there are staff on site to assist, but let us know if this will be a barrier for you to ensure someone is available.
We have one car park in our entrance way which you can use for compost collections. Otherwise, parking on Hospital Rd is very limited as all on-street parking is for the Hospital.
Our compost is unsifted. We try to remove large chunks of wood, fruit stickers etc, but you may find some of these in your compost. If you’re growing seeds, we recommend sifting the compost first.
Please return the compost bags (reused grain sacks from the Garage Project) for further reuse - please leave them in the same place you picked up the compost from.
Receive compost donations
We donate our compost to local māra kai / food growing projects in the community, such as marae, community gardens, schools, kindies, healthcare providers and more!
Please fill in the form below to tell us your preferred collection location and time, compost amount and any other requirements. Then we'll email back to confirm your order and collection.
Important things to note:
You will need to load up the compost yourselves from our maturation piles, so we advise bringing a pickup truck or trailer and a few helping hands - we can help if someone is on site. If you only need a small amount (<160L) we may be able to bag up the compost for you.
We have one car park in our entrance way which you can use for compost collections. Otherwise, parking on Hospital Rd is very limited as all on-street parking is for the Hospital.
Our compost is unsifted. We try to remove large chunks of wood, fruit stickers etc, but you may find some of these in your compost. If you’re growing seeds, we recommend sifting the compost first.
Please return the compost bags (reused grain sacks from the Garage Project) for further reuse - please leave them in the same place you picked up the compost from.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at compost@kaicycle.org.nz
We hope our compost goes on to produce some delicious homegrown veggies and native perennials. Let us know how you get on - we love to see photos of your mahi māra! <3
