Bring your own toaster was a rule for some of those attending the Trustpower welcome breakfast on the Durham Street footpath outside the new Trustpower Headquarters today.

Breakfasters were able to select toast from about 17 or 18 toasters brought along to the breakfast by councillors, the CEOs of Priority One, Tourism BOP, and senior Trustpower staff including community relations manager Graeme Purches and CEO Vince Hawkesworth.

Tauranga City councillor Kelvin Clout with Trustpower employee Jennifer Stanbridge.

The breakfast was a Mainstreet Tauranga initiative welcoming the power company to the central city.

'You could have had anything you liked, as long as you had toast. There was some burned toast,” says Mainstreet manager Sally Cooke.

Trustpower CEO Vince Hawkesworth donated his toaster which could be won by a person who donates to the Foodbank, says Sally.

The timing of the breakfast was worked out with Trustpower, so it would be nice and relaxed and also not interfere with the Trustpower work day.

For Trustpower's service desk team leader Jennifer Stanbridge, one of the positives about moving into the city is the chance to catch up with fellow workers she hasn't seen for months or years as staff outgrew the Te Maunga offices.

'I love the buzz of the city. There's people around, there's shops, traffic. The building feels like we are really grown up now, and we are a real player now,” says Jennifer.

'It just feels grown up. I thought I would hate the travelling and it does add an extra half our on my day. But I used to be 40 minutes on a bus in Glasgow in the rain and here it's beautiful.

'I love it. Love the moving around and the fact I feel fitter and healthier because I'm never sitting. We can stand at our desks. We feel quite spoiled actually.

'We don't have desks, it is called activity based working. So if I'm writing a report we call them huts. There's a desk in a room where you can go and shut yourself away and concentrate, or there's focus areas where people aren't supposed to disturb you. You can go and sit in whatever area suits you, it's lovely.”

The $25 million building was officially opened last week, thought the staged occupation by the more than 500 Trustpower staff has been taking place over the last couple of weeks.

Trustpower is New Zealand's fifth largest electricity generator and retailer, having broken the New Zealand energy mould by expanding into multi-product offerings including telephone, internet, and gas.

Rapid expansion over more than two years has seen Trustpower outgrow its former head office facility, located at Te Maunga.

That, combined with a desire to move to a new activity based working model, which Trustpower calls Synergy New Ways of Working, has seen 525 staff move to the new purpose-built facility on Durham Street in the Tauranga CBD.

The new building houses functions ranging from the 24/7 control centre for Trustpower's generation facilities, which include 38 New Zealand and three Australian hydro facilities, two New Zealand and three Australian wind farms, and a small diesel generation array near Marsden Point - which provides increased security of supply and pricing stability for the Northland and Far North areas of New Zealand, to Customer Service, Generation Support, IT, Finance, Marketing and Community Relations.