Resilient Comvita founder to celebrate sweet milestone | Bay of Plenty News | Local News in Bay of Plenty

In a grey pinstripe suit and a bee-dotted tie, Comvita founder Claude Stratford will certainly look the part at his 100th birthday celebration next week.

After a century on the planet, the founder of the Paengaroa-based multimillion-dollar health food business has worked hard for what he has achieved, known great love and suffered tremendous loss.

The resident of Te Puke's Carter House, who will turn 100 on Wednesday, has never been one to relax in his golden years, starting Comvita after moving to the Bay of Plenty in the 1970s to "retire".

Only in his 90s did Mr Stratford finally become a true retiree, spending his days listening to the radio.

Next Friday, though, he will don the suit he hired in Tauranga this week and head down the road to Paengaroa, where Comvita, started by his desire to help others, will wish him a happy birthday.

Co-founder and director of Comvita, Alan Bougen, said up to 200 guests from as far away as Europe and Asia would join staff, past and present, for the afternoon celebration.

Mr Bougen, who approached Mr Stratford for a job in his 20s, describes his friend as not only a pioneer in using bee pollen for human nutrition, but as a true survivor of a life well-lived.

Mr Stratford lost his first wife during the birth of the couple's fourth child, who also died.

He has lost his two adult daughters, lived through two world wars, the Great Depression and weathered a number of failed business attempts.

Mr Bougen said his business partner always seemed to have been born a couple of generations too early.

"He was selling health foods when most people wouldn't have even heard the term," Mr Bougen said.

Still interested in Comvita, Mr Stratford talks about the benefits of bee pollen at every opportunity.

He also takes daily doses of olive leaf extract, fish oil, manuka honey, bee pollen and multi-vitamins. "We'll see how the next 100 years go," he said.