New Zealand food producers have three weeks left to consider their sector's response to emissions reductions. As the He Waka Eke Noa roadshow enters its last month, Vincent Heeringa suggests we keep seeing this issue wrong-headedly While rioters tossed their...
Opinion
Every week The Feed interviews the movers, the shakers and the makers in the New Zealand food industry. Check out the interviews on The Feed Weekly podcast or in a Q&A format below. And if you’ve got a story to tell or an opinion to share, drop us a line at editor@thefeed.co.nz
Don’t give me culture: what’s stopping the lab-based meat sector?
When a US-based alt-meat company wanted to benchmark itself with the best in the world, it choose New Zealand lamb. Black Sheep, a Silicon Valley start-up making plant-based lamb, named its first product New Zealand Heritage Lamb, just to show how good it could be....
New video shows human face of Red Light effect
New Zealand may be world-leading in its Covid management but it's coming at a cost to the hospitality sector. It's easy to be glib given that we're talking about lives saved. But these business people have their businesses and families' income at stake. In this video,...
Cuisine Good Food Awards 2021/2022 announced
The Cuisine Good Food Awards for 2021/2022 were announced this week in an online awards ceremony, after a challenging year of lockdowns and travel restrictions. The awards assess hospitality venues up and down the country, awarding the best in the country according to...
What’s hot in cuisine this year? Here’s 29 reckons
Covid-19 has changed consumer dining habits for good, according to Unilever's annual 'Trends on a Plate' report. "Dining habits have changed and may become permanent, with research firm GlobalData expecting takeaway and delivery to power the hospitality industry until...
A plant-based vision: Jade Gray from Off-Piste Provisions
If you were looking for someone to launch a new food brand, Jade Gray is your man. He's managed a farm. He has managed a supermarket butchery. He ran a meat processing plant in China, and he launched (and sold) a chain of pizza stores in Beijing called Gungho. Now...
Genius in a bottle: Amy Alexander, J.M.R Cocktail & Co
Bottled cocktails became everyone's best friend in lockdown as they helped us pretend our living rooms were bars. But not all bottled cocktails are created equally. In July, Tash McGill spoke to Amy Alexander, Co-Founder of J.M.R Cocktail & Co whose top-quality...
Who feeds the fish that feed the world? Ask Damian Moran
Fish farming is all very well - but who feeds the fish that feed the world? Sourcing and distributing fishmeal is one of the biggest challenges for the growing aquaculture industry. Fishmeal depends on wild-caught fish, potentially depleting stocks, and is the largest...
Farming the fishes for the dishes: how sustainable is aquaculture?
In part 3 of a whistle-stop tour through sustainable seafood, Vincent stops to check in on the fish farmers This winter I broke my rule. I've been on an eat-no-seafood stance as a tiny protest against overfishing and, you know, all that ocean stuff. Brave? Pointless? ...
Same tuna, different song: the encouraging story of a (maybe) sustainable catch
In the second of an ongoing series, Vincent ponders whether tuna should make it to his plate Cats love tuna. I love tuna. We all love tuna. The appetite for tuna in the last 60 years has been prodigious, reaching 6 million tonnes a year, a 1000% growth since 1950....
How I lost the taste for fish
A year ago I lost my taste for seafood. That’s disappointing because I love kai moana. I love fresh oysters delivered on a bed of shaved ice. I love a crispy snapper fillet fried on a campfire and served with a squeeze of lemon. I like the camaraderie of fishing –...
Food as software: Dr Rosie Bosworth on the alt-protein revolution
Alternative proteins are on the rise. Whether it's plant-based or lab-grown, alternatives to agriculture are creating proteins that are cheaper, tastier, less cruel, and have a lower environmental impact. Indeed futurist Tony Seba says that the cow is being...
Follow the honey: why is our cuisine missing from our tourism story?
Food drives so much tourism to Europe, the USA and even Australia. So why is our food so absent in New Zealand's tourism story? As we consider reopening to the world is it time to reconsider the role of New Zealand cuisine in the 100% Pure story? And what is New...
The Govt Stranglehold on our Food Industry and Future
The bubble was always going to burst. It began as we were squeezed into big-box grocery stores to fill our pantries and fridges during the first lockdown. It continued as questions were raised about the security of our food supply chain. It escalated in this longest...
Regenerative farming: only one person knows what it means (hint: it’s not you)
A new report by Beef and Lamb NZ sheds fresh light on the role that regenerative farming could play in growing our primary sector exports. The news is encouraging. Conducted by US food researcher Alpha Food Labs, the report shows that ‘conscious consumers’ in Germany,...
Get oat side: Morgan Maw, Boring Oat Milk
New Zealand grows great oats and makes excellent oat milk - in Sweden. That's right. It's grown in New Zealand and then shipped to Sweden where it's processed and returned to our shores to be bottled and sold. That hardly seems the sustainable alternative we all hoped...
Lauraine Jacobs: Questions That Beg Answers
In the first week of our nationwide Covid Lockdown I ventured out to the supermarket and bought, amongst a small trolley load of food, a beautiful crisp fresh lettuce, grown in local soils. I gulped at the price, $4.99, but knew it would last us for three or four...
The industry dilemma: complain or comply?
Of all the people to spare a thought for this lockdown, I bet no one has suggested Don Braid. The outspoken chief executive of Mainfreight had the PR equivalent of a meltdown earlier this week in response to news that truckies need to be tested at the Auckland border....
Lisa Booth: Kite Kai for the people
Lisa Booth is founder and CEO of Kete Kai, Aotearoa’s most accessible food box — borne out of her frustration with the current food system. New Zealand produces enough food each year to feed 40 million people, but an estimated 75,000 – 100,000 Kiwis are living with...
Happy cows, tastier milk: Glen Herud, Happy Cow Milk Company
Glen Herud is the founder of the Happy Cow Milk company, an entirely new way of doing dairy where the cows keep their young, the milking shed is mobile and the pasteurization is done on farm in a tiny shed that Glenn has made. Hard at it since 2006 Glen has faced...
Brain Gain: Angus Brown of Ārepa
Straight out of university, Angus Brown got a job selling energy drinks - a plum job for a commerce graduate with ambitions for a bright career. But flogging high-sugar drinks didn’t give Angus a spark of joy. And he set off on a different toward making an energy...