Spreading himself thin: The man who drives 750km for cheap butter

Saturday, 17 May 2025

A Taranaki man has come up with a creative side hustle - driving a 750km return trip to Auckland for van-loads of cut-price butter.

Butter prices have soared 65% in the year to April, according to Stats NZ, with shoppers and businesses feeling the hike.

Kaleb Halverson’s side hustle started with a suggestion from his mum.

“She’s big into Costco,” Halverson, who lives in Inglewood, Taranaki, said.

“She had just come back from going up there herself and she said, ‘it would be so cool if someone would deliver: why don’t you do it?’”

So, he did.

Halverson started a Facebook page - That Delivery Guy, NP - and putting a shout-out across the region for anyone wanting items from Costco, almost a five-hour drive away in Auckland.

On his first run, he had three orders, which he loaded into a rented vehicle.

Ahead of his second trip, Halverson posted photos of Costco goods on his Facebook page, including butter: the wholesaler was selling kilogram packs of butter for $10.

It was an “insane” price, given that the cost of a 500g pack of butter at Halverston’s local supermarket had hit around $11.

The orders flooded in.

“Demand was crazy — there were quite a few people wanting five to ten packs each,” he said.

Recent figures from Stats NZ show that climbing butter costs are hitting Kiwis in the wallet. Prices have leaped by 65% in just a year, or $3 more for a 500 gram pack.

Infometrics’ chief forecaster has said this is due to high demand for butter overseas, which is pushing up local prices.

Limited by space, Halverson packs the butter into chilly bins he borrows from his friends - he eventually called time on butter orders.

However, he managed to truck around 100kg of butter back to customers all across the Taranaki region.

Other items in hot demand from Costco include bulk cleaning products and lunchbox snacks, he said.

Halverston already has a full-time job, and he makes the 10-hour round trip on one of his days off, leaving at 4am and returning late at night.

However, he’s planning to grow his delivery side hustle, and with his mum and sister, he’s launched a website, and started a Givealittle campaign to help get started with a vehicle and storage costs.

It felt good to be able to deliver butter and other cheaper items to people who can’t make the trip themselves, he said.

“There’s so many people who are into what Costco offers, but can’t access it or can only go once or twice a year.”

A keen butter consumer himself, Halverson had trained in cookery at the Western Institute of Technology.

“I very much bake and cook.”

He said he was disappointed in the dairy brands that had hiked their prices: Costco’s pricing proved the staple item could be sold for less.

“We’re the dairy capital of the world, you would think we would benefit a little bit, [but] we don’t.”