Aka Raupapa National Freight & Supply Chain Superhui
Brightstar and Tainui Group Holdings (TGH) are proud to announce a landmark partnership to host Aka Raupapa: the inaugural National Freight & Supply Chain Superhui 2026. This collaboration unites Brightstar’s twenty-year legacy of building capability and fostering B2B connections with TGH’s intergenerational stewardship of freight and supply chain networks in the Waikato region.
For Brightstar, this partnership represents its ongoing journey to find a meaningful pathway in a modern Aotearoa, acting as a catalyst for organisations that put people at the centre of their success. This mission aligns perfectly with TGH’s responsibility to grow the commercial assets of Waikato-Tainui, where every profit is reinvested into the health, education, the environment, cultural wellbeing of the iwi and the generations to follow.
Te Puutake – The Essence
Aka is the vine: living, tensile, always seeking, binding trees and whole ecosystems together. Raupapa is order: the purposeful arranging, sequencing and organising that turns movement into momentum. Aka Raupapa is the living network of Aotearoa New Zealand’s supply chain – roots, branches and waterways interlaced – moving us from intention to action.
For centuries Waikato awa (river) was the original supply chain of local iwi – the aka that connected people, places and prosperity. Along its banks, stands of trees intertwined below the surface; old trees giving life to the new. Trade among iwi before the arrival of the settlers was sophisticated and relational: kumara met tuna; fish from Kaawhia travelled inland; mountain kai journeyed downstream. Nothing stood alone; everything found its path through connection, reciprocity and careful whakaraupapa – stacking, sequencing and organising so the right taonga reached the right people at the right time.
Aka Raupapa re-awakens that worldview for the 21st century and beyond. It is the invitation to gather government, industry and iwi leaders, network operators, exporters, property specialists and cargo owners into one river of thought – a Superhui – to weave a national logistics system that is cohesive, resilient, productive and future-fit.
When the river is connected, life moves. When our supply chain is organised, Aotearoa moves—with speed where speed matters, with care where care is essential, and with purpose always. Aka Raupapa is the moment we move together.
For Brightstar, this partnership represents its ongoing journey to find a meaningful pathway in a modern Aotearoa, acting as a catalyst for organisations that put people at the centre of their success. This mission aligns perfectly with TGH’s responsibility to grow the commercial assets of Waikato-Tainui, where every profit is reinvested into the health, education, the environment, cultural wellbeing of the iwi and the generations to follow.
Pillars
HONOHONO – Connectedness
The vine that binds ecosystems becomes the network that binds our economy.
RAUPAPA – Organisation
From scattered effort to sequenced action; from silos to system.
WHAKATINANAHIA – From intention to action
Real decisions, real commitments, real delivery.
WHAKAPAPA – Intergenerational view
Choices that honour those before us and equip those after us.
MANAWAROA – Resilience
Designing for shocks and adapting with agility.
TOITUU – Sustainability & productivity
Doing more with less impact; value that endures.
