You can observe first-hand what's nourishing your favourite salads, fresh vegetables and barbeque meats by signing up for a Port of Tauranga summer tour this month.

From next Monday fertiliser manufacturer Ballance Agri-Nutrients will open its doors and let people experience first-hand how the fertiliser that feeds Kiwi farms, orchards and gardens is made.

Ballance CEO Mark Wynne says they sources nutrients from nature and makes them into fertiliser to feed plants.

'By using fertiliser, farmers are replacing nutrients that are used by the grass or plants to feed the animals and crops, who in turn feed us.

'Not too many people are aware that fertiliser provides for 50 percent of world food production. It's sobering to think that without fertiliser, billions of people would have no food.”

The guided bus tour follows the rock from its arrival at the Port, through the manufacturing process to the end product, opening the doors on the fertiliser plant that has sat on its Hewletts Road site since the 1950s.

The bus then travels back across Hewletts Rd and continues its tour of the Port of Tauranga.

The tours run twice daily at 9.30am and 1pm from Monday, January 16, to Friday, January 27.

Tickets cost $5 per person, with $1 from each ticket donated to the Port of Tauranga Rescue Winch. To book your spot on the tour call the Port of Tauranga office on 07 572 8899.

Last year's Ballance tour guides, from left: Ra Walker, Angela Newton, Daryl Richardson, Sarah Becker, Shaun Piper, Anita Grenside, Kurt McCollum and Tony Clar