Society Insider: From hyperbaric chambers to mobile vitamin drips, NZ’s biggest wellness industry power players

More than 30,000 native trees have been planted, 7km of lakefront has been fenced off, and four architecturally designed guest accommodations have been created, along with a raft of wellness activities, such as dining in edible gardens. The accommodation and tours, led by Justine, have earned Lake Hāwea Station a Gold Condé Nast award.

Andrew Shelling (from left), Justine and Geoff Ross at Dine for a Cure at Lake Hawea Station. Photo / Yaeh Smeaton

The global attention has attracted a host of internationally renowned wellness experts. Among them is American Dr Zach Bush, whose globally recognised work in soil health and regenerative agriculture led him to establish Project Biome, championing microbiome, immunity and gut-brain health. Also hosted at the Station was Lauren Roxburgh – also known as “The Body Whisperer” – the world’s most in-demand bodyworker and holistic trainer, who held her Soil to Soul classes on site.

Lake Hāwea Station earned a Gold Condé Nast award.

The couple regularly open up their farm for charity events, including the annual Breast Cancer Hike and Dine for Cure.

Over the Crown Ranges, My Food Bag co-founders, Nadia Lim and Carlos Bagrie, have Royalburn Station. In the 15 years since winning MasterChef NZ, Lim has been one of the leading figures in championing a diet of whole, unprocessed foods and vegetables.

Carlos Bagrie and Nadia Lim at Royalburn Station.

The couple sold My Food Bag in 2021. Lim is still an ambassador for the brand and works with the team of chefs, recipe developers and nutritionists on recipes, including its healthy eating option Fresh Start.

This year, Lim has teamed up with nutritional biochemist Dr Libby Weaver to simplify the messaging around healthy eating. Weaver has been a pioneer in the wellness space for more than two decades, a 13-time best-selling author, and the founder of the Bio Blends supplement range.

Dr Libby Weaver is a 13-time best-selling author.

Meanwhile, Lim’s fellow MasterChef winner, Chelsea Winter, ran a women’s wellness retreat, Nourish & Bloom, last year. The four-day event cost $6800 to $9400 a head, and there is a waitlist for next year’s retreat, which will be held at the luxury South Island estate Flockhill.

Before celebrity chef Amber Rose returned to her New Zealand roots, she spent more than 15 years in London as a food writer, prop stylist, art director and private chef, working with celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Hudson, Chris Martin, Kate Moss and Sadie Frost. A year before moving home to New Zealand in 2016, Rose penned her wellness book Nourish alongside Sadie Frost and Frost’s sister Holly Davidson.

Celebrity chef and fermentation expert Amber Rose. Photo / @Amber_Rose_NZ

Rose has since released three more cookbooks and created her successful and award-winning fermentation business, Live Wild, which offers adaptogenic and superfood blends.

New Zealand-born, London-based top model Jessica Clarke and her Auckland-based business partner Emily Blanchett are also looking to the earth for business inspiration. Their Mother Made Mushrooms brand uses medicinal mushrooms to create organic blends to support energy, focus, sleep and beauty.

The business was recently recognised in British Vogue, which said Mother Made Mushrooms was the superfood to try in 2026.

Emily Blanchett at her wedding (centre) with her Mother Made Mushrooms co-founder Jessica Clarke (right). Photo / @Roimanta

From saunas to scans

Six months after Society Insider featured Watershed, New Zealand’s first floating sauna in Queenstown, the lakeside contrast therapy oasis has become a magnet for wellness tourists from around the world.

Watershed co-founder, broadcaster-turned-wellness-entrepreneur Dominic Bowden and his fiancee, model Esther Cronin, have become the “it” couple of the Queenstown wellness scene.

Wellness couple Esther Cronin and Dominic Bowden

Bowden has a podcast called WellBeings, while Cronin has launched her own wellness platform, Ready&Reset, offering online programmes and in-person retreats.

One of Bowden’s co-founders is uber-wealthy Mark Francis, CEO of property investment and fund manager Centuria NZ.

Francis’ wife, Dominique, launched an LED red light therapy and infrared-heated fitness studio, Redroom Wellness, at Auckland’s City Works Depot in 2024, and a second studio in Takapuna this year.

Mark (second left) and his wife Dominique Francis. Photo / Paddy Foss

Queenstown is said to be the next location for Redroom Wellness, and there are whispers Watershed will be expanding into Taupō.

Grey Lynn and Parnell’s Hana is popular for contrast therapy treatments, where a full session will cost between $45 and $360. Founder Sara Higgins spent a decade as a pharmacist and treated her own chronic inflammation with infrared saunas and red-light therapy. Hana also offers massage therapy.

Hana founder Sara Higgins.

Former Māori All Blacks captain Tim Bateman created O-Studio wellness centre in 2019, which also offers contrast therapy.

Bateman has been a pioneer in the wellness space since 2016, after seeking treatment in Singapore for his former-hockey-player wife Laura’s multiple sclerosis. O-Studio began in Christchurch with flotation tanks and later added contrast therapy, group yoga and Pilates sessions. Nine more studios have since opened in New Zealand, with an additional four locations in development.

O-Studio founder Tim Bateman.

Last year, Bateman created a partnership with Australian franchising giant BeWell Brands, which owns Jetts Fitness. Through BeWell, Bateman says he already has 12 confirmed Australian O-Studios. His goal is to have 100 locations across Australia within 10 years.

Mother-and-daughter duo Rachel Hunter and Renee Stewart are well-known in the yoga and breathwork circuit. When home, they host wellness retreats in New Zealand, as well as in Asia and Europe.

Pilates studios have popped up in shop villages across Auckland suburbs. Lane and Jane Gibson opened Reform Fitness in Mount Maunganui in 2011 and have grown it into a nationwide franchise with more than 30 studios. Meanwhile, Herne Bay studio owner Anna Miles has high-profile clients that include beauty entrepreneur Jamie Lupton and PR guru Gemma Ross.

Auckland Hyperbarics, run by Nic and Jacqui Anderson, worked with top hyperbaric specialists and imported what it claims is New Zealand’s largest chamber, which uses oxygen therapy. Treatments cost $200 a session.

The Andersons have a number of sporting A-list clients, including UFC fighter Israel Adesanya and former All Black Anton Lienert-Brown, who use the treatment to help their bodies recover faster.

Israel Adesanya at Auckland Hyperbaric. Photo / @Auckland_hyperbaric

Two years ago, Society Insider featured Taika Waititi’s involvement in promoting MRI scans, a new trend in Hollywood billed as preventative medicine. While advocates highlight the benefits of proactive, preventative care, the endorsement also drew criticism over claims of health “elitism”.

Taika Waititi having a preventative MRI. Photo / @Taikawaititi

Waititi has continued to be one of the proponents of MRIs as preventative medicine – this year he fronted a campaign for New Zealand’s Astra Radiology wellness scans. A private wellness or full-body MRI scan in New Zealand typically costs between $1500 and $6600, depending on the clinic and the range of testing.

Another scan fan and longevity advocate is former Waikato truck driver Josh Kersten, who has full-body MRIs and tracks his bone density with Dexa scans.

Kersten began working with manufacturers to produce his own range called Prime Platinum. The brand is promoted as Australia and New Zealand’s leading supplier of electric cryotherapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy and red-light therapy equipment for home use. Kersten’s list of clients now includes high-end gym chains here and overseas.

Prime Platinum founder Josh Kersten.

Supplements, infusions and influencers

Leading clinical nutritionist Ben Warren founded BePure Health in 2004 in his Hawke’s Bay clinic and the brand is now a household name.

There are also some new faces disrupting the industry in New Zealand. Katherine Douglas, the granddaughter of the late Sir Graeme Douglas, is bringing a new wellness focus to the Douglas Pharmaceuticals empire, New Zealand’s largest family-owned healthcare company.

Katherine Douglas and Jess Quinn have teamed up in the Wellness industry. Photo / Babiche Martens

Katherine is the daughter of Graeme’s son, Jeff, and joined the family business in 2011, five years after it acquired the New Zealand-founded supplement brand Clinicians.

She has since founded Braveface, which produces herbal supplements for stress and sleep, and runs Healthcare by Douglas (HBD).

Last year, Douglas partnered with disability advocate and social media influencer Jess Quinn.

Douglas and Quinn, who suffers from endometriosis, have a supplement range for hormones, gut and cycle health called Cadence, and a women’s health podcast and media platform, We Are The Cyclist.

Mega-rich Gary Lane founded MitreQ in 2005. The targeted antioxidant, which has been scientifically researched to penetrate cells to support the function of mitochondria, is exported to more than 100 countries, with global sales reportedly at nearly $70m last year.

MitoQ founder Gary Lane on his Wairakei Golf Course.

Also on our watch list is biotechnologist Greg Macpherson of Science Research Wellness Laboratories (SRW). For the past 10 years, Macpherson has been consulting with global experts to develop new formulations to support cellular health, nutraceuticals and epigenetic testing, targeting the hallmarks of ageing.

SRW Laboratories founder Greg Macpherson.

Wealthy clients from Auckland and Queenstown have been using registered nurse Jennifer Ng’s business, Drips New Zealand, the first fully mobile IV therapy and concierge medical service. The service offers nutrient infusions, DNA testing and preventive health consultations with longevity doctor Dr Afraz Adam, directly to clients’ homes, hotels, or boats.

Drips founder Jennifer Ng, Dr Afraz Adam and Victor Fraga at an event in Auckland. Photo / Paul Menezes

Vitamin drips start from $329, and go up to $750 if you add the NAD+ drips, which deliver nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide directly into the bloodstream for cellular repair, energy production and metabolism.

Wellness couple Marc Ellis and Mibella Villafana opened their women’s wellness space Cora Studio last August and also offer IV Infusions, along with contrast therapy and Pilates.

Wellness couple Mibella Villafana and Marc Ellis. Photo / @mibellayogapilates

Former The Bachelor stars Art Green and wife Matilda have a combined reach of more than 250,000 people on Instagram, where they share health, fitness, good food and parenting tips.

Wellness influencers Art and Matilda Green.

Art also has a podcast called Well & Good, where listeners hear from world-leading health and wellbeing authorities, while Matilda co-hosts a parenting podcast called Untidy.

Gyms and fitness stars

Fitness and sporting icon Sir Les Mills died earlier this week, leaving behind a legacy that has shaped the global fitness industry for more than half a century. The empire Mills built with his late wife, Lady Colleen, began in 1968 and continues into its third generation, with their grandchildren Diana and Les Mills jnr now actively involved in the business.

Les Mills International CEO Phillip Mills.

Since taking the reins in the 1980s, their son Phillip Mills and his wife, Dr Jackie Mills, have transformed the family business from the Jazzercise era into the global powerhouse behind BodyPump.

While fitness trends such as Hyrox and CrossFit increase in popularity, Les Mills International (LMI) is the world’s largest distributor of branded group-exercise programming for health clubs.

At the Les Mills 50th Birthday party in 2008, the late Sir Les Mills, granddaughter Diana Archer-Mills and her father Phillip Mills. Photo / Norrie Montgomery

Next year, the Phillip-founded LMI will turn 30. Its programmes are taught by more than 90,000 certified instructors in 14,000 licensed clubs in 80 countries.

Phillip and Jackie have an estimated wealth of $380m, according to NBR, and are big on supporting environmental causes.

Former Les Mills alumnae, LA-based Kirsty Godso, was the lead Nike Global Trainer for 13 years, with a celebrity client list including Hailey Bieber and Olivia Rodrigo. Last year, Godso signed a multi-year deal with Californian label Vuori, a contract believed to be in the millions.

Kirsty Godso is a former Les Mills alumnae.

Party People of the Week

A night of Michelin stars

More than 400 guests gathered at the New Zealand International Convention Centre on Tuesday evening to mark the arrival of the Michelin Guide in Aotearoa, its first destination in Oceania, recognising restaurants in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown.

The inaugural Michelin Guide recognised one restaurant with two Michelin stars, 14 with one Michelin star, 35 Bib Gourmands and 60 Michelin-selected restaurants.

Paul Froggatt of Essence in Queenstown received two Michelin stars, with one-star restaurants including Auckland’s Paris Butter, Ahi and Tala, Wellington’s Ortega and Logan Brown, and Christchurch’s Inati.

Michelin Guide international drector Gwendal Poullennec travelled from France to present the awards, alongside MC for the evening, broadcaster Sonia Gray.

Guests enjoyed a culinary celebration prepared by leading international and New Zealand chefs, including Michael Cimarusti of California’s Providence and Nobu Lee of Taiwan’s NOBUO.

Mingling with New Zealand’s top chefs were Auckland Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson, Tourism and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston, Australian food platform Secondz CEO Taf Chiwanza, Gourmet Traveller’s Georgia Cordon and Japanese media personality Sakiko Hirano.

Paul Froggatt at the inaugural Michelin Guide selection. Photo / Smoke Photography Paris Butter’s Nick Honeyman and Zennon Wijlens with Peter Gordon. Photo / Smoke Photography Ahi’s Ben Bayly and Special PR’s Mikayla Ngare. Photo / Smoke Photography Tala’s Henry Onesemo. Photo / Smoke Photography Michelin Guide’s Gwendal Poullennec, Auckland Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson and Tourism and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston. Photo / Smoke Photography Sakiko Hirano. Photo / Smoke Photography Donna and Raukura Huata. Photo / Smoke Photography Phoebe Holden, Sarah Tuck and Claire Aldous. Photo / Smoke PhotographyTaf Chiwanza. Photo / Smoke Photography Kelly Grindle and Michael Reynolds. Photo / Smoke Photography

All That Glitters

The opening night of the Auckland Live Cabaret Festival brought a glamorous mix of familiar faces to The Civic last Wednesday.

Guests enjoyed All That Glitters: The Gala Night in The Civic’s Wintergarden, before making their way to the main stage for Cheeky Cabaret, a riotous celebration of circus, comedy, vaudeville and burlesque.

Among those spotted were Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson; broadcasters Matty McLean and Aziz Al-Sa’afin; media personality Erin Simpson; comedian Chris Parker; fashion designer Adrian Hailwood; entrepreneur Iyia Liu; musician and jewellery designer Boh Runga; Auckland Pride executive director Blaise Clotworthy; actors Matu Ngaropo and Andrew Papas, and Jennifer Ward-Lealand, who directed the opening gala.

The Auckland Live Cabaret Festival continues until July 5.

Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson and Peter Goodfellow. Photo / Sacha Stejko Gosha Khugaev, Brad Christensen, Matty McLean and Lucy Lynch. Photo / Sacha Stejko Adrian Hailwood and Hélène Ravlich. Photo / Sacha Stejko Boh Runga and Stacey Wah. Photo / Sacha Stejko Victoria Walsh and Blaise Clotworthy. Photo / Sacha Stejko Isla Mayo and Matu Ngaropo. Photo / Sacha Stejko Natallia Ramanchuk and John Flower. Photo / Sacha Stejko Gosha Khugaev, Augusta Lorck, Portia Gascoigne, Tabitha Lorck and Lucy Lynch. Photo / Sacha Stejko Sam Alrdini and Vili Tonu. Photo / Sacha Stejko Chris Henry, Kate Jones and Matt Reyland. Photo / Sacha Stejko Jasmine and Eddie Kim. Photo / Sacha Stejko

Ricardo Simich has been with the Herald since 2008 where he contributed to The Business Insider. In 2012 he took over Spy at the Herald on Sunday, which has since evolved into Society Insider. The weekly column gives a glimpse into the worlds of the rich and famous.