A Gore student who turned Waituna eel into pâté has won Southland's top Young Enterprise award and will carry the region's colours to the national finals in Wellington in December.

Millie McFadzien, an 18-year-old Year 13 student at St Peter's College, was named Southland Young Enterprise Company of the Year for her business The Lost Larder at the regional awards held at the Invercargill Workingmen's Club last week, the Otago Daily Times reported yesterday.

The Lost Larder makes eel pâté using eel supplied by Waituna New Zealand Eel. Miss McFadzien started the company at 16 and has built it through the Young Enterprise Scheme, the national programme in which secondary students set up and run a real business over the school year.

She told the ODT the work had been hard but full of lessons, and that it "teaches you what working in the real world is like". Along the way she said she had dealt with major brands, marketing businesses, professional retailers and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, the government's export agency.

This year 160 students from four Southland secondary schools took part in the scheme, launching 60 businesses between them. Six teams made it through to the regional awards night. The judging panel included representatives of ILT, Community Trust South, Invercargill Airport and the Southern Institute of Technology, among others.

The Lost Larder's win puts a Southland food product with a strong local story in front of national judges. Waituna, east of Invercargill, is better known for its internationally recognised wetland than for its food exports, and eel has a long history as a food source in the region.

The scheme asks students to do everything a start-up does: settle on a product, find suppliers, work out costs and pricing, handle packaging and food safety requirements, pitch to retailers and keep the books, all while completing their final year of school. For a food business built around a fresh regional ingredient, the supply and compliance side is a substantial piece of work in itself.

Young Enterprise has been a regular springboard for Southland students. Past regional winners have gone on to run their ventures beyond school or to take the lessons into tertiary study and other careers.

Miss McFadzien and The Lost Larder will represent Southland at the Young Enterprise Scheme National Finals in Wellington on 9 December.