Owaka's Sarah Freeman with her Lincoln High School Young Enterprise Scheme project, the hangi-flavoured chip. 

It's crunch time for a group of enterprising Kiwi students as their hangi flavoured potato chips are launched to the public this week. 

The eight former Lincoln High School students hope New Zealanders and the touring public will like the new chips, which took two years to hit shelves. 

Sarah Freeman, whose family recently moved to Owaka in the Catlins, is part of the group who came up with the new chip flavour as part of the national Young Enterprise Scheme two years ago. 

MARY-JO TOHILL/STUFF The 19-year-old says she's excited to see the product on shelves after she and a group of fellow students came up with the idea two years ago. 

The scheme aims to teach students how to start a business. 

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The year 13 students had the choice of creating a start-up, or developing a new product within an existing business. 

They decided on creating a new potato chip flavour for South Canterbury company Heartland Potato Chips. 

Their flavour – hangi – was inspired by the Māori method of cooking food in an earth pit. 

"Our goal was to give our project a New Zealand aspect," Freeman said. 

The fact potato chips were so universally popular was also a factor in the project. 

The students formed a company called Parareka, after the Māori word for potato, and created a logo. 

Using their entrepreneurial skills, they approached Heartland, the Bowan family-owned business in Washdyke, near Timaru. 

The potato-growing, chip-making business owners embraced the idea of a novel chip with a distinctly Kiwi flavour. 

"Once we'd come up with the idea, we began to think what it would taste like, so it would be something not tasted before and would be a bit different,' Freeman said. 

The group settled on a sweet, smoky flavour. 

Freeman, 19, said the process sounded straight-forward, but was far from it. 

The group hoped to get started before Christmas in 2016, then there was a further delay due to a shortage of potatoes last year. 

The group had left school by that point and, because the project was outside the enterprise scheme scope, they had to register their company nationally. 

The years of hard work had paid off though, with chip production starting a week ago and products expected to be shelves around the country by Waitangi Day. 

"Seeing the box arrive, it brought tears to my eyes," Freeman said. 

It was doubly poignant because the hangi chips would be sold at the Owaka Four Square store, which her parents took over last year. 

Freeman had been working there over summer and planned to study architecture at Victoria University in Wellington this year. 

"I was seeing real product go on real shelves." 

The hangi chips are a limited edition, but if they take off and become a permanent line, the group may receive a small percentage of the profits. 

"[Heartland] have been so on board with it and supported the school.  It they'd said no, none of this would have happened." 

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