And it was capped off nicely when the company, which independently and scientifically certifies the origin of food products, won the award for innovation in hospitality, food and beverage at the New Zealand Innovators Awards in Auckland last week.
Chief executive Dr Helen Darling attributed the company's success in the awards to its work being so novel. The company, with global links, has been pioneering commercial food origin systems.
It entered the awards after encouragement from the Dunedin City Council. There was a diverse range of finalists in the category - yoghurt company Easi Yo, Cadbury, and Stay Today, Australasia's first mobile application for same-day hotel bookings.
Dr Darling paid tribute to Oritain's hard-working staff, who were motivated and courageous, and worked as a team. To win the award was a thrill, when they had been working so hard, she said.
It had been a busy year, with lots of things happening, and there were a huge amount of opportunities.
The challenge was to make sure they did not get too distracted by what was out there and what was possible, and to balance those potential opportunities with working with producers and getting their products to market, Dr Darling said.
Nearly a year ago, the company outgrew its Pacific St premises and moved to a purpose-built building at AgResearch Invermay, which was more of a workable space, was set in a nice, rural environment and had room to grow, she said.
New staff had come on board, including Dr Rebecca McLeod, winner of the 2008 MacDiarmid Young Scientist of the Year award. Dr McLeod, who gained a bachelor of science degree from the University of Canterbury in 1998 and her PhD in 2008 from the University of Otago, was a marine ecologist by training.
She also works as a research fellow at the University of Otago.
Her job at Oritain, which was science liaison, was a "really important" role within the company, Dr Darling said.
It involved an understanding of science, then taking that specialist knowledge and translating the language into something everyone could understand.
Dr McLeod said she was "loving" the job. One of the things that attracted her was the enthusiasm among the team.
There were now eight staff at Invermay, and another person based in Washington DC. The company had shifted its model and outsourced some of the support roles, Dr Darling said.
The company has been involved with organising GoTrace, an annual conference which brings together scientists, food producers, government agencies and service providers to advance the science of food provenancing and supply chain integrity.
The conference will be held in Napier on October 31, with the theme of bringing science solutions to producers. That was in response to the need to maximise international market opportunities.
In the year ahead, Dr Darling saw consolidation of the company's New Zealand client base in the key areas of honey, dairy, meat, horticulture and wine.
The company was attracting a lot of interest offshore and she saw growth in Asia and the United States.
She expected some areas in which the company specialised, such as honey, dairy products, meat and horticulture, would continue to grow.
Oritain's clients were all motivated people who were producing good products that they wanted to protect, she said.
