This week’s smörgåsbord of foodie news and views
Oat milks are hot right now — with top offerings including Oatly, AllGood, Otis, Little Island Creamery and the locally manufactured Boring Milk. The growth in this product category makes so much sense, given the rising popularity of vegan and dairy-free diets, plus the low-climate-goodness of New Zealand grown oats, compared with alternatives made from soya beans, almonds or rice.
VegiFare is the latest oat milk to arrive, having been launched by a 20-year-old Cantabrian. VegiFare’s new chocolate milk is made with Otago-based Harraways oats. Still under development, but so far, feedback is positive.
Heard about the Transforming Recycling Proposal? This is a long-term project recently released by the Ministry for the Environment with the aim of increasing the recycling of packaging containers, reducing litter and lessening emissions. You can find all the nitty-gritty information about the scheme and Otis’ perspective on the matter here.
Click here for the definitive Kiwi oat milk taste test
New Zealand’s first of its kind proposed emissions plan was widely reported internationally, with many articles predictably playing the adolescent burp tax or fart tax angle (insert snigger, snort here). Most also included the predictable mention of NZ’s ratio of animals to people, as well as basic explainer of the link between ruminating animals and methane. Honestly, it’s like it’s a newly-discovered thing.
If passed, the move would make farmers responsible for paying a tax on the emissions produced by livestock beginning in 2025. Get your handy overview of the local reaction in The Wrap: He Waka Eke Noa lays down emissions challenge to government.
Meanwhile the UK Government is being slammed over its food strategy
“The UK is in a cost-of-living crisis with food prices spiralling, real-wages falling, growth plummeting and taxes up. It is clear now that the Government has absolutely no ambition to fix the mess they have created”, says Jim McMahon, the shadow secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs.
This on the eve of a leaked paper suggesting ministers are set to reject key recommendations from a major review, that was supposed to investigate the entire system “from field to fork” to ensure it was robust “in the face of future shocks” and delivered healthy and affordable food “regardless of where people live or how much they earn”.
Sorting Food and Fibre’s short courses
There are several hundred short courses relating to the Food and Fibre sector currently available in New Zealand’s educational marketplace. Now a project being led by Dairy Training, the Food and Fibre Centre for Vocational Excellence and others in connection with the New Zealand Qualifications Authority seeks to organise these courses into a more cohesive offerin
“We are working with NZQA on this because we believe it is important for all those micro credentials to actually count towards something”, says Jackie Lynch, Portfolio Manager for FFCoVE. It makes sense that if someone in an industry has done a whole lot of short courses, that they be able to use those as credits to a bigger qualification.”
