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The Fresh Life
Pujan and Manisha share their personal story as part of a new series offering a glimpse behind the counter of our neighbourhood stores.
Pujan and Manisha share their personal story as part of a new series offering a glimpse behind the counter of our neighbourhood stores.
Mount Maunganui produce seller Pujan Adhikari loves citrus fruit. But after peeling 5kg of oranges, even he could have been forgiven for being sick of the sight of them. However, in retail, giving customers what they want is all part and parcel of providing a good service. So when a request to peel, pack and provide 5kg of oranges for an event came in, he obliged. “It took a while, but we did it with a smile,” he says.
Pujan and his wife Manisha Baral Adhikari have owned Papa’s Fruit and Vege in Rotorua since late 2021 and bought Mount Fresh Produce and Grocer at Central Parade in July 2024, refurbishing it and opening a month later.
They are living their dream, but that doesn’t mean Pujan has much time for sleep.
Six days a week he’s up before the sun, seeking out the freshest flavoursome fruit and crunchiest most colourful vegetables. He scoots between three fresh produce wholesalers in Tauranga each morning in his quest to secure the best. Then, with a full van, he heads to the Mount shop to deliver and make sure everything is ready for the day before driving to Rotorua to check on things there. He doesn’t usually get home before 7pm.
“The best part is knowing we’re bringing healthy, fresh food into people’s homes and it feels good to know our work makes a difference”
On Sundays there’s no early start as the markets are closed, but with both shops open seven days, he often still has to work. Despite the toil, the early starts and all the driving, he says it’s worth it. “The community is the heart of our business. People who come in once, often come back – and not just for the prices or freshness, but because they see how much care and effort we put into everything.”
He estimates around 70-to-80 per cent of customers at the Mount shop are from the local community with even more, about 90 per cent, in Rotorua.
“We love seeing our regulars and building real relationships. Slowly we are becoming known faces in the neighbourhood, and that feels good.”
But it can be tough work. “Every job has its challenges, but running a fruit shop is physically demanding, time consuming and full of responsibility – there’s a lot of work behind the scenes that people don’t always see.”
Both Pujan and Manisha are from the city of Pokhara in the Kaski district of Nepal’s Gandaki province, 200km west of Kathmandu, a place they say that is full of mountains, farms and warm hearted people. Before moving to New Zealand they were college students with big dreams. Pujan was studying science and was always curious and hard working. Manisha was studying hotel management while working part time as a radio presenter. She loved talking to people and sharing stories, and still does.
Now 30, Pujan came to New Zealand when he was 18, chasing his dream, even though he wasn’t sure what he was going to do and, at the time, was too young to be planning his future. Manisha followed two years later and they have lived here since, but returned to Nepal for their wedding on Christmas Day 2015.
After a couple of years’ of study, Pujan had begun working in a supermarket in Auckland and then in food production. On a trip to Rotorua, they came across an empty unit at the Te Ngae Shopping Centre that screamed “potential” – a place Pujan could fulfil his desire to create something from the ground up.
“We believed we could fill a gap by bringing freshness, quality and heart to the community,” says Manisha. “We renovated the shop with our own hands, stocked it with love and reopened it. That was the start of our dream.”
If they had a favourite customer it would be Krish, one of their first regulars, who dropped off a handwritten card one Christmas saying how much he appreciated them. “It meant everything to us,” says Manisha.
Their second shop was already established, but that didn’t mean it was any less work. It needed a complete overhaul, with the old swept away in favour of the new.
Manisha works full time at VTNZ but is very much part of the business. “She is my support and everything, every decision we make, she’s there, we make it together. This might be my plan, but we are together and every step we take is together,” says Pujan.
Pujan’s biggest inspiration has always been his father, a farmer in Nepal. “He used to grow fresh vegetables and taught Pujan the value of hard work, soil and honesty,” says Manisha.
Pujan recalls his father preparing cauliflower and cabbage he had grown, with the memories flooding back when he began working in a Kiwi supermarket’s fresh produce section. So, while he isn’t quite carrying on the family tradition, he is working in a closely related business, doing something he is passionate about.
“The best part is knowing we’re bringing healthy, fresh food into people’s homes and it feels good to know our work makes a difference. Local people genuinely support us and want us to do well and we thank them for that. And we want to give back to the community, so that’s what we are trying to do,” says Pujan.
