Faces at the Grey Lynn Farmers Market - Puk’eco

Early childhood teacher, Sarah D'Almeida, can be found at the Grey Lynn Farmers Market selling her natural body care products on the second and fourth Sundays of the month.


PUK’eco is a very old idea. I first started by designing an educational game. A friend of mine was living in a women’s community in India where they make things to order. They made a beautiful prototype but I lost my only contact with the group when, tragically, my friend died in a road accident.

It’s very different from deodorant, how did that happen?
The thread is everything natural that you can grow and make yourself. It is a simpler way of life. I don’t think we need as many synthetic chemicals in our life when there so many great natural choices.

So PUK’eco is a plant-based idea?
I love the power of herbs and plants. My grandmother and mother have always been keen gardeners and made herbal remedies - I seem to have inherited their passion. I love thinking about new products, discovering the wonderful properties of plants, and trying out new concoctions. I started selling them at the market in 2016 and PUK’eco got a new life.

How does the Grey Lynn Farmers Market help?
There is a lovely atmosphere at this market. I love all the other stallholders who I meet there, and I love using their products as ingredients - Lynn’s local beeswax, Leon and Anita Narbey’s olive oil, Rob and Murray’s organic seedlings. I can’t afford organic certification, but I use as many organic ingredients as I can. Where I can’t, I source ingredients from suppliers who I know and trust. The market is great for making those connections.

What has been your biggest surprise?
An American girl visiting the market told me that she is allergic to baking soda and she challenged me to develop a baking soda-free deodorant. It was so much fun. It was the first stick deodorant that I made. I had to clean out a glue stick to create a container for it. Now, I make them in beautiful cardboard containers.

Your accent isn’t a Kiwi accent - where did you grow up?
I grew up in the wild north of New Caledonia, so my first language is French. My family has been there for five generations - they were African slaves on Réunion Island who went to New Caledonia to start a new life when slavery was abolished.

I came to New Zealand 10 years ago to learn English and, at first, I actively avoided mixing with French speakers to force myself to be immersed in English.

Why are you only at the market two Sundays a month?
That’s to give me time to fit in some of my other interests. I’ve been doing a lot of script writing. I’ve been working on a short film, a ghost story. And I’ve worked on some feature films that are currently in post-production.

That’s a lot to juggle...
And I’m an actor. I’m in a TV commercial that will air soon. Let’s see who spots me in
it first.

www.pukeco.co.nz,     www.glfm.co.nz