Last week, over two days (18–19 February), almost 450 like-minded people gathered in Waipara, North Canterbury for UNDERGROUND, Aotearoa’s festival of soil, food and farming. Hosted at Greystone, the organic vineyard in the Waipara Valley, Underground brought together international and local experts for talks, workshops and field experiences, alongside generous local kai and music.There was an incredible turnout of our Eat New Zealand Kaitaki (a collective of 100+ future food leaders), involved in all aspects of the festival.

The Eat New Zealand Kaitaki are an inter-connected collective of next-generation food leaders shaping the future of Aotearoa’s food system from the ground up. Launched in 2020, the Kaitaki span the entire food ecosystem - from regenerative farmers and fishers, seed savers, chefs, food scientists, food waste experts, health professionals, communicators and educators. They are storytellers working at the intersection of environment, people and culture, making food systems change within their own communities.

Individually their work is powerful, but collectively they function as a connected, mycelial ecosystem - sharing knowledge, supporting each other and accelerating system-wide change.

They come from across the motu; from Ōhaeawai to Rakiura, Ngāpuhi to Ngāi Tahu, representing a deeply rooted, place-based understanding of food.

Their stories are the embodiment of what makes Aotearoa unique. They are both the present and the future of New Zealand food.

Underground showed what happens when the Kaitaki ecosystem gathers in one place.

Their diversity and depth is nothing short of astounding. We can’t wait to see what they do next!

Scroll down to learn more about them...

Connecting the Threads

Behind the scenes and across the programme:

Chanelle O’Sullivan - A key wahine behind Underground (alongside Legend/Founder Fran Bailey), she was one of the event organisers and works as an agriculture-focused communications specialist through her business Harvested Media, based in Central Otago.

Growing & Regenerating the Land

Market gardeners, farmers and regenerative advocates were strongly represented:

• Alex Morrissey: Storyteller & market gardener at Little Farms in Wairarapa

• Jamie Tucker: North Canterbury grower at Laughing Pūkeko (who also supplied produce for the event

• Phil Varley: Farmer at Pihi Farms in North Canterbury (provided the regenerative beef for the festival)

• Monique Macfarlane: Biodynamic/organic farmer & educator based in Waihi

• Brittany Morison: Market gardener at Tomtit Farm in the Waikato

• Fiona Young: Regenerative agriculture advocate in Taranaki

• Logan Wait: Waikato farmer & Founder of Earth First - fully certified micro-abattoirs

• Sam Rowland: Gisborne-based nature advocate and environmentalist

• Kaitlyn Lamb: Compost Consultant at Kai Compost based in Christchurch

Together, they represent the soil-to-system shift happening across the motu.

Chefs, Makers & Hospitality

Feeding the festival and shaping food culture on the plate:

• Chef Josh Hunter of Food by Fire (Ōtautahi)

• Chef Max Gordy of Graze Wine Bar (Te Whanganui-a-Tara)

• Fiona Clements of Ka Kā Wā Chocolate, who hosted a cacao ceremony at the festival (based in Ōtepoti)

These Kaitaki embody the bridge between regenerative production and meaningful dining experiences.

Storytellers, Artists & Educators

Holding space for knowledge-sharing and creative expression:

• Sophie Merkens: Author of Eat Wild, writer & food photographer

• Siobhán Hemingway: Taranaki Farmers Market Manager & graphic designer

• Ngaio Cowell: Artist/Ringatoi & University lecturer, hosted a Harakeke 101 workshop in the Parakore tent

• Victoria Bernard: Garden to Table Education Manager (NZ-wide)

• Michelle Barry: Vice-Chair of Quorum Sense & Co-founder of Nature Point and Tuath, working in agri-business strategy to improve environmental outcomes

Their work ensures that food systems change is communicated, taught and carried forward.

As the year drew to a close, it felt like the perfect conclusion to a chapter filled with heartwarming moments and cherished memories. After a decade of separation, my entire family gathered under our roof for Christmas, igniting the spark of what would become an unforgettable holiday season.

Our festivities spanned nearly a month, extending beyond the confines of our home to include gatherings with our extended family. For Filipinos, Christmas is not just a holiday; it's a grand celebration that transcends time and distance, a day when we collectively pause our busy lives to honor and cherish the bonds that tie us together.

This year, our Christmas celebration was a tasty challenge for everyone. Each family member was paired up to prepare a special dish, and together, we orchestrated a grand "boodle fight." This traditional Filipino dining style is a living testament to the profound importance of communal eating and sharing. We gathered around a table generously adorned with fresh banana leaves, eschewing conventional plates and utensils in favor of a truly authentic experience—eating with our hands. Upon this makeshift banana leaf platter lay a colorful array of delectable delights, from fragrant rice to succulent grilled and fried meats, an assortment of seafood, an abundance of vegetables and fruits, and an array of flavorful sauces. The air was thick with laughter and vibrant conversation as we reached for dishes, passed them around, and revealed ourselves in the spirit of togetherness.

In that beautiful moment, we were reminded of the significance of food in Filipino culture. Our culinary heritage is a vibrant tapestry, interwoven with love, tradition, and a deep sense of family. Family gatherings and special occasions are etched into our cultural DNA, and our collective efforts on that day were a heartfelt tribute to our shared roots. We cooked up a storm, not just to fill our bellies, but to ensure that every family member could take home a piece of the celebration—a slice of gratitude for the warmth of family ties and the enduring richness of our culture.

Words by Jess Granada, #EatNZKaitaki and chef/owner of Nanam Restaurant in Takapuna, Auckland.

Watch the video below to learn more about Jess and her ‘why’.

We have unlearned so many things we thought we knew about how to "traditionally" farm pigs due to this beautiful girl. Violet is like no other pig we have ever meet. Even though she is large and a determined character she is also gentle, trusting, comical, incredibly clever and very loving.

Violet and her daughter Date showed us that pigs do not need to be intensively managed and that when given the opportunity pigs can thrive grazing/foraging and birthing outdoors with very little input from us as farmers - (we do indulge in daily pats and scratchs and supplement their diets with waste milk during late pregnancy and lactation as well as feeding them unsaleable and fallen fruits, plus excess vegetables from the gardens).

Getting to sit with our mother pigs, watching them feed their babies and edit their nests, seeing the babies learning to dig, forage and play and having the big pigs come over for a scratch and a chat (yes Violet actually looks up into your face and talks to you like she is asking for a scratch) is such a privilege and a responsibility that we don't take lightly.  

Our beautiful pigs and the learnings we made from mistakes we have made along the way, have inspired us to share how different pigs lives can be when they are kept out of pens and birthing crates and allowed to develop and live by their natural instincts.
Seeing a mother gather grass and then build a birthing nest with thick grass walls is a sight to behold.

Violet and her pigs that have followed have allowed us to imagine a food system where nothing is wasted. Where every small farm/orchard/market garden has a small family of pigs who create a closed-loop system of fertility and food resources. 
Where small producers could contribute to a resilient food dynamic aka a Mana-centred local food system.

But for that to happen there is a glearing obstacle to be overcome.
Depending where you farm it is incredibly difficult to get pigs processed into pork for sale, especially here in the lower south. (Yes we can consume our own homegrown meat but selling it is another story).

The ability to share a product of that happy natural existence experienced by our pigs, legally, is beyond difficult. And so "we" import around 60% of the pork consumed here in Aotearoa from countries with lower animal welfare standards than here (according to NZ Pork).

As a nation of primary producers this shouldn't be our reality. 

To be able to nourish our community with locally grown produce should be made a priority for the welfare of human and animals alike.

Words and images by Nicole McKnight @feastival_farm

One highlight was a rangatahi loading her plate with onion weed, delighted to have discovered this new food. It’s great to see light bulb moments, like when someone said, “what we are gonna be eating weeds?” Then after tasting said, “That's yum as! I've been pulling this out of my garden....now i know! I'm gonna tell my family about this!” It's moments like this that plant a seed and that's what we are trying to grow.

A suggestion I have for the mana-centred local food system is a strong focus on non-commercial locally produced food. I think the learning spaces, community and school gardens, as well as people’s personal gardens, could become more prominent. These have the ability to enhance mana through shifting whānau towards food resilience and building communities. I think these spaces when done well could be another example of a food system innovation particularly for fruits and vegetables. Coupling education about community/ personal gardens alongside mahinga kai and wild food in the Last Mile Distribution can enhance the mana of whānau through resilience building and connection to kai production/sourcing. 

Words by Fiona Williams. Learn more about Fiona’s mahi over on LinkedIn.

Words, video and images by Eat NZ Kaitaki Victoria Bernard @masontoria. See more of her mahi (work) over on @gardentotablenz.

We hope their thoughts encourage you to have your own. We’d love to hear what you think and what you’re doing to create mana-centered local food systems yourself.

Want to see the model in full detail? Download it here.

You can also watch some examples of our NZ Food System Innovators who are leading examples of the ‘Infrastructure of the Middle.’

NZ Food System Innovators:

In 1931, when Jaffas first appeared for sale, oranges from Jaffa were wildly popular. Renowned for their thick skin, their sweetness and their lack of seeds, the shemouti or “Jaffa” oranges were one of Palestine’s biggest exports. They travelled well, they were easy to peel and most importantly they tasted incredible. The city of Jaffa was full of orange orchards, introduced in the 10th Century and growing the same variety of fruit since the mid-19th century when Ottoman Palestine first began trading them. Arabs owned orchards and Jews worked in them, Jews owned orchards and Arabs worked in them. The trees were rooted in soil that knew the feet of Jews and Arabs as equals. The world knew Palestine as “The Land of Oranges”, posters bearing pictures of glowing-golden fruit encouraged people to “Visit Palestine” and “Buy Jaffas”. Queen Victoria named them the citrus fruit at The Royal Table. In Jaffa camels laden with bright globes of fruit, carefully wrapped in their individual papers, walked from orchards to the sea. Between the World Wars, the orange industry boomed as the sun shone down as one giant orange in the sky.

For years the orange was a symbol of identity to Palestinians. To Indigenous Arabs and Jews they were a symbol of light and strength, a testament to the way they worked with not on the land. Orange trees were an extension of the self, bright and sweet and springing, strongly-rooted from the earth. To Jewish refugees who had fled Europe they were a symbol of hope. Jews and Arabs continued growing Oranges, side by side, with only healthy competition, at one point there were equal numbers of Jewish and Arab growers of the fruit that made up three quarters of the total fruit (excluding olive) production for export. In the early 1920s when Palestinians were asked to vote on a flag the responses overwhelmingly contained the colours orange and green.

In the 1930s as the Zionist population grew with the arrival of more Jewish refugees to British Mandated Palestine the competition began to change, Kibbutz were set up hiring exclusively jewish workers. Spain began producing more oranges with cheaper labour and lower shipping costs. Drought led to lower quality fruit and trade restrictions were implemented which hurt the Palestinian exports and the people whose lives relied on them. Then in 1947 a partition plan was created, separating Arab Palestine and Jewish Israel. Jaffa, of which Tel Aviv was once a small Jewish area, was set to be part of Palestine, not Israel.

But in April 1948 Jaffa was besieged and pounded by what would soon be known as the Israeli Army. Land was destroyed, once fertile orchards were left twisted and smouldering. Palestinians fled, crammed into boats with none of the care with which their fruit had once been packed. No care for bruises or scars. No papers. Only desperation to escape the violence. Their roots left twisted and torn. On May the 14th 1948 the State of Israel was declared, and Jaffa became known as Tel Aviv-Yafo. Of the more than 70,000 Palestinians who had once lived there only 4000 remained.

But the Jaffa orange was still famous, a symbol of prosperity to the Israelis in their new found homeland. A symbol of hope for freedom and connection to their ancestral homeland for the Palestinians. Fruit that still bore the name Jaffa proudly on its label a symbol of all that was lost. Zionist agencies took over, absentee laws were created meaning that property could be seized if no one was home. These laws were distorted, orchardists went to work amongst the trees and returned to their houses to find someone else at “home”. With nowhere to live these people were forced to leave, carried out to sea on rivers made of their own salty tears.

But the Jaffa orange was still famous. The world knew them, they brought in money. Orange growers of Arab Jaffa and Jewish Tel Aviv signed a non-aggression agreement to protect the orange orchards. They would not be attacked, harvests and exports would continue. But the militia disagreed and random attacks continued to destroy them.

Zionist agencies and new Jewish settlers claimed the orchards for themselves, but they had none of the generations worth of knowledge of working with the land. They attempted to work on it, demand from sad trees who’d felt the violence too. The oranges still grew, now labelled “Jaffa Orange, Israel”, and their sweetness drowned in memories of bitterness. New orchards were planted, Zionists claimed they had modernised the cultivation of fruit,  and these “modern approaches” became a symbol of an Independent State of Israel as if the oranges had never before existed. Trade sanctions and growing production in Spain and Italy meant Jaffa oranges were left abandoned in the port, making their way from ripe to rotting. Orange growers who had fled were no longer considered citizens, no way to return home, left abandoned to make their way across the sea and beg for refuge in someone else’s land.

Slowly the orange orchards disappeared, Jaffa disappeared, annexed behind the bustling “new” city of Tel Aviv. Land that remained was absorbed as property of the State of Israel and the world forgot it had existed before. Trees were removed, roots severed and earth replaced with concrete as canopies shrunk to make way for skyscrapers. The Jaffa orange, the juice of which was once ranked 2nd only to Coca-Cola, was forgotten. There is only one famous orange tree now in Tel Aviv, a floating one, roots trapped in a dirt basket, hanging in the street, suspended, magically disconnected from the land its ancestors once knew. Hung in 1993, long after the world forgot Jaffa.

Oranges are still grown in Palestine. They are still a symbol of strength and love and connection to the beautiful land of home. A connection to history and heritage. In January of this year Yousef Maher Dawas, a young Palestinian writer in Gaza wrote about the destruction of his family’s trees. “But now, three rocket holes plagued my memories. They had left dark grey sand and the scorched remains of trunks and branches from trees that used to bear the fruit of olives, oranges, clementines, loquat, guavas, lemons and pomegranates. I put my hands on my heart to catch it from falling and I felt the three holes there in my heart. This … attack … had successfully destroyed a piece of our past. Our family’s history. Our heritage. ‘But who are we without a past or a history?’, I asked myself.” Yousef was killed, along with the remaining Dawas family, on October the 14th 2023, when an Israeli missile strike hit their home in Beit Lahia, North Gaza.

This article began about Jaffas, but it didn’t really. Jaffas have a long and beautiful history in Aotearoa, but what about the other Jaffa? What was a jaffa before it became a bright red sweet with only vague displaced memories of orange? What about the long and beautiful history in Palestine? What happened to the sweetness?

Written by Lavi Small. She is a chef, a writer and an Eat New Zealand Kaitaki.

International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste Reduction (IDAFLW) took place on Friday 29th September 2023, - so we honoured the day by encouraging our Kaitaki to share how they reduce food waste at home, at work, or in their communities.

22 Food Waste Tips to help #RepurposeTheSurplus from our Kaitaki across Aotearoa:

1. Leave it to the pigs! Memphis, a farmer in Northland, raises their pigs on both the waste milk from the cows that isn’t suitable for tanker collection and the household food scraps.

2. Pest control as food! Turkeys are an issue on farms across Aotearoa, as they eat a lot of grass and their poop kills trees, including native trees where they roost. Memphis tells us that on farm they cull the turkeys but always make sure to harvest all the meat and then use the carcasses for trapping other pests.

3. Transform food surplus into a culinary gift! The delicious Kai Māku sauces from Tamryn are an amazing example of using surplus manuka honey and caramelising it into a delicious sauce.

4. Turn crusts into croutons! Amber’s picky children prefer their crusts cut off their sandwiches - so she transforms the bread crusts into croutons and the kids eat (and love!) them.

5. Don’t let bananas go bad! Freeze them for smoothies or turn them into banana bread muffins, to be stored in the freezer for a quick lunch box addition.

6. Have vege? Make soup! Using any extra vege that is going old at the bottom of the fridge - Amber loves to whip up a simple and nourishing soup for her family.

7. Share your kai! Amber’s favourite way to avoid food waste is to share what you have with your family, friends and neighbours.

8. Make Mushroom Paté! Wendy from Perfectly Imperfect saves old mushrooms and turns them into mushroom paté - inspired by the mushroom ketchup from Hey Citizens. You simply fry onions, sliced mushrooms, a bay leaf, garlic, apple cider vinegar, a sweetener of your choice, raisins, olive oil, salt and spices such as clove. Blitz til smooth and eat on toast.

9. Try Bokashi! Thomas and Sheena of Chasing a Plate pickle their food waste using Bokashi. Including everything from bones, fruit and vegetable scraps.

10. Freezers are your best friend! Freezers are brilliant for storing everything from dodgy feijoas for baking, to random pieces of fruit and leftover pizza sauce.

11. Eat the skins! Chef Jaron from the Agrodome in Rotorua keeps it super simple, he doesn’t peel his carrots and believes we shouldn’t either - the nutritious skins have all the good stuff.

12. Get composting! Our self-dubbed compost princesses Kaitlyn and Jess reminded us that when adding your food waste to the compost, it’s important that you cover your green materials (the food scraps) - with brown materials including things like paper, red leaves, or mulch.

13. Save it for tomorrrow! Lou in Southland saves any of her toddler’s half-eaten, half-cut fruit for tomorrow’s porridge. She always has takeaway containers for lunch and as a last resort whatever doesn’t get eaten becomes duck food.

14. Let old produce go to seed! To save any weather-affected produce - such as potatoes impacted by the wet summer/autumn that didn’t make the cut for eating - Memphis put them away in the shed over winter and recently opened the boxes to find them sprouting - so they’ll be used as this year’s potato seed. Genius.

15. Crush eggshells for protection & calcium! You can scatter the crushed eggshells in the garden to protect your future food from snails and slugs - plus it keeps the eggshells out of landfill. You can also use them within the chook food itself to help provide an extra calcium boost.

16. Tackle vege before it goes off! If you don’t know what to do with it, simply chop up what you have - then steam, roast or leave it raw and throw it in the freezer for a later date. Roast pumpkin for example, can be defrosted and mixed with flour to make delicious pumpkin pasta in minutes.

17. Don’t trust ‘Best Before’ dates! They are merely a guide, not a ‘you must eat by then.’ Use your senses to look and smell the food item whether fresh or frozen. If meat has been freezer-burnt - simply remove that part and feed it to your other four-legged friends.

18. Buy from your local farmers market - to ensure our farmers sell out! Alex of We are Little Farms explains that what doesn’t sell at the markets becomes “waste” that farmers have to find a home for, which can be really hard. Through her ‘Ugly Boxes’ she can redirect any produce that might have gone to waste.

19. Think ahead to next year’s growing season! This year Alex has also decided to grow far less lettuce, as it’s a crop that has a short shelf life and can’t be preserved as easily - which can result in a lot of wastage.

20. Store your fresh broccoli stalk in a glass or beaker half filled with water in the fridge and it will last WAY longer, says Lydia, founder of Pickled Compost.

21. Could pigs - the ultimate recycler - play a major part in the food waste solution? Murihiku Farmer Nicole asks the question: If you are a meat eater would you save your scraps to feed pigs at a local farm and then have the opportunity to access locally grown pork? OR Imagine if orchards and market gardens kept pigs or poultry to graze on the fallen fruit / unsellable vegetables and also had the ability to process and sell that ‘extra’ produce locally to their communities.

22. Let books inspire you to waste less food! Jannine from @huntresswines pulled together a list of books that inspire her to grow, ferment, forage, cook like our ancestors, eat seasonally, utilise the whole animal, compost and recycle - all to ensure she doesn’t waste food. Check out her list of faves here.

See more of the highlights from International Day of Food Loss & Waste over on our IG - @eat.newzealand and follow the hashtag #RepurposeTheSurplus.

Check out more #foodwaste action and inspiration from @nzchampions123, @foodprintnz, @perfectlyimperfectsnz and the team at @lovefoodhatewastenz .

Kai - taki *(not to be confused with Kai-ti-aki)

In celebration of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori @reomaori / Māori Language Week: 11th - 17th September we wanted to share the story behind the kupu / word - Kaitaki.

We often hear people confuse the term with ‘Kaitiaki’ - a guardian (of the environment) - but the word ‘Kaitaki' (without the extra ‘i’) is different and has a unique and very special meaning.

The word itself was gifted to us by Dr. Hana O’Regan of Ngāi Tahu, a Māori language advocate who has spent her career working in language revitalisation.

'Kaitaki' reflects the ability of this group of individuals to lead the way for what comes next.

In Te Reo Māori the kaitaki can be leader of the kapahaka group, or the person at the front of the waka - the one who delivers a heralding call, responsible for mobilising others into action and leading with strength.

Our Kaitaki are people who are deeply engaged in the kaupapa, in their own unique ways, further connecting people to our land and ocean through our food.

Their voices play a crucial role in the future of kai/food in Aotearoa. There are now over 135 Eat New Zealand Kaitaki.

We can’t wait to see what this new cohort will contribute to the Aotearoa Food Story.

Stay tuned over on our Eat NZ Instagram as we introduce you to each of them…

#EatNZKaitaki #EatNZ #Kaitaki #ReoMāori

Now into its fourth year, we are incredibly excited to introduce you to our Eat New Zealand Kaitaki for 2023/2024 - a collective of next generation food leaders telling the Aotearoa food story.

This year we welcome another 42 individuals from across the food system, each of them are the embodiment of what comes next in food in Aotearoa. Together they join our three previous cohorts taking our Kaitaki Collective to an army of over 135 future food leaders!

We are grateful to have the support of our major sponsor Our Land and Water National Science Challenge to help us champion and facilitate this powerful cohort.

The cohort is led by Kate Underwood, a Kaitaki herself, she is a Freelance Food Writer and Communicator (@relishthememory) from Te Puke, who has worked alongside Angela Clifford for the last five years as the Communications Specialist for Eat New Zealand.

• Instagram @eat.newzealand

• Facebook @eat.nz

• Search the Hashtag #EatNZKaitaki across social media

Read on below to meet the new voices in the collective...

Te Tai Tokerau / Northland

Tamryn Smith - Small Food Producer

Tamryn is a small food producer and ‘saucier’ who co-owns and manages Kai Māku Sauci (Kai Ora Mānuka Sauces). The sauces use Mānuka Honey in a caramelisation process that can be used to elevate all kinds of dishes. Originally from Tauranga moana, she is a Māori māma based in Kaitaia with her partner (a former beekeeper). Passionate about kai, she has spent over 20 years in the hospitality industry. She graduated from the Ka Hao e-commerce programme in 2021, and has just started another role within Ngati Kuri Tourism at Kā Uri Un-Earthed (the home of sustainable ethically sourced ancient Kauri.) @kaimakusauci

Memphis Brooks - Rural Professional / Red Meat Auditor

Memphis (Ngati Whatua O Kaipara) is red meat auditor, a mama, a gardener, a cook, and a homesteader tending to a small number of animals on the west coast of rural Northland with her partner. As a rural professional she graduated from Massey University with a bachelor of agricommerce majoring in international agribusiness, has a supply chain background and is an inaugural council member of the NZ Food and Fibre Youth Network. She grew up in the city and has been hungry for connection food and land her whole life. Next year she is completing her post-grad in teaching so she can empower rangatahi to become more food secure. @em_dubs_

Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland

Chloe Eberly - Student / Hospo Professional

Chloe is an AUT Master of Gastronomy student and hospitality professional with an interest in sustainable food systems and the future of food. Currently a senior waiter at Hugo’s Bistro and Omni (wine & yakitori bar), she also collaborates with Carlo of Strawberry Pig, for a monthly pop-up at Annabel’s Wine Bar. With more than a decade in hospitality she believes this has formed the basis of her food literacy. Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania she comes from generations of Amish farmers and moved to Aotearoa after graduating high school. She loves gathering people around a table with kai and appreciates the stories that this inspires. @chlo.eberly

Andrea Bravo - Chef / Health Coach / Photographer

Andrea is a chef, health coach and photographer. Originally from Chile, New Zealand has been her home for the past 12 years. She is a solo mum of two girls and started cooking professionally when she left home. She is passionate about creating whole food recipes and living a life closer to nature. As a certified health coach she loves guiding people on their journey from sickness to health and does so by providing a personal chef service for people healing from chronic autoimmune conditions which are rapidly escalating right now in New Zealand and around the world. She truly believes it starts with the food we eat and the soil we grow it in. @dandelionkitchennz

Jessabel Granada - Chef / Restaurant Owner

Jessabel is a chef and the co-owner of Nanam Eatery, a Filipino/Spanish inspired restaurant on the North Shore in Takapuna, Auckland. After arriving in New Zealand from the Philippines when she was just 23, she has found her home here. Alongside her partner Andrew Soriano, they’ve been introducing Filipino cuisine through food and stories to New Zealanders and in 2015 started selling “Taco Pao” (taco siopao) with pork cooked in humba sauce at the Auckland night markets. She admits life in hospitality is difficult, but believes with purpose comes responsibility and fulfilment and the challenges of the past few years have made her stronger. @nanamrestaurant

Danijela Armitage - Content Creator / Nutritionist

Danijela is an NZ Registered Nutritionist and the content creator behind the digital platforms Nourish and Tempt. She aims to bridge the nutrition and culinary worlds through sharing nutritionally-considered recipe ideas, alongside nutrition information communicated in an easy-to-digest manner. Her professional career included community nutrition, private practice and workplace wellbeing. She believes the kitchen is a wonderful gateway to better nutrition, and hope readers can build their kitchen confidence and nutrition knowledge through Nourish and Tempt recipes. @nourishandtempt

Bridget McCarthy - Sourdough Baker / Photographer

Bridget is a bread baker, photographer and barista with over ten years of hospitality experience. For the last two and a half years she’s been working as a whole grain sourdough bread baker at Florets Bakery in Grey Lynn, Auckland - under the guidance of Maya Handley. Over her time there she loved using local suppliers, and making something highly nutritious for the local community. She’s an amateur fermenter, a model, a budding green finger and is passionate about slow food production, accessibility and food education. She lives to eat and is an avid lover of Dominion Road’s diverse foodscape. @bringomac

Jonathan Thevenar - Chef / Restauranteur

Jonathon (Ngāti Rangiwewehi (Awahou) and Ngati mani) is a passionate chef and co-owner of three wel-loved Auckland restaurants including; Pici - a small pasta restaurant in St Kevin’s Arcade, Ooh-fa a woodfired pizza spot on Dominion Rd and Tappo - a new wine bar next to Pici. His true passion is in permaculture, gardening, hunting, fishing and building with natural products, but also preserving and leaving places better for the community. He sees himself as a Kaitiaki of the land and the communities he interacts with and always has improving the health of our environment front of mind. @chef_jono_t / @pici.krd / @oohfa__ / @tappo.krd

Lavinia Small - Chef / Writer

Lavinia (Lavi) is a chef and writer whose mahi is focused on exploring food as a means of storytelling. Her work weaves together poetry writing and food design to create emotionally rich, evocative culinary experiences through which the stories of land, sea and peoples are made wholly consumable. She is currently finishing her first book and is the head chef at Conch Kitchen and Bar in Auckland where she blends the flavours of Latin America and the Caribbean with those of Aotearoa - over a fire, in a building that burnt down during lockdown.​​ @laviniasmal @conchkitchenbar

Laura Wieland - Regenerative / Community Gardener

Laura is an organic, regenerative gardener and community builder based in Piha. After growing up in Amsterdam with no connection to where her food came from, seven years ago she fell in love with a New Zealander and moved to Aotearoa. She works for The WayGood Foundation, organising weekly volunteer days at their permaculture garden and delivering educational workshops. She is driven to connect her community with their food, by inspiring them to grow their own produce and share plants, seeds and homemade compost. She lives off grid in a tiny house on her partner’s family farm and is in the process of creating a regenerative homestead. @laurainpiha @waygood_foundation_piha

Anna Worthington - Dietitian / Researcher

Anna is an NZ registered dietitian and PhD researcher focused on behaviour change. Currently in her third and final year, her PHD research investigates how we can use behaviour change science in nutrition research. She loves blending science with spirituality for a holistic outlook on life and is constantly seeking ways of creating positive ripples through our communities. She co-facilitated a six week community nutrition programme with Tō Wāhi and the Oranga Community Centre, alongside a personal trainer which taught practical cooking skills, how to shop healthy on a budget and movement practices.

Matua Murupaenga - Chef / Māori Wine Producer

Matua (Ngati Kuri, Ngati Kahu) is a chef, wine producer, DJ, keen cyclist, and carb lover from Tamaki Makaurau. He’s an urban Māori hailing from West Auckland who grew up navigating the weekday kitchen on a low budget with high inspiration and preparing big marae feeds in the weekends. He is about to release his first vintage of natural wines with a focus on Māori practices and tikanga. He recently worked at Pici restaurant making fresh bread and pasta daily. When not in the kitchen, he’s on his pahikara taking on the bike haters of Tamaki. @ngatibarkteryx / @tawhiti.wines

Thomas & Sheena Southam - Youtubers / Content Creators

Thomas and Sheena Southam are the creators of Chasing a Plate, a YouTube channel that celebrates great food and the people behind it. They capture their food experiences through engaging videos, celebrating the work of small producers, chefs and food focused community organisations and share it with their audience of over 200,000+ food lovers. For the past few years they’ve used their platform to focus solely on Aotearoa’s food culture - including individuals from our previous Kaitaki cohort. They live to eat and travel and started Chasing a Plate as a Melbourne-based food blog in 2013 and over the past 10 years have travelled to over 30+ countries. @chasingaplate

Lily Henderson - Dietitian / Food and Nutrition Communicator

Lily is a NZ Registered Dietitian and is the Nutrition Manager and in-house nutrition expert at My Food Bag. Lily is passionate about keeping meals simple, nourishing, locally sourced while minimising food waste wherever possible (get those broccoli stalks in). When Lily isn’t cooking, baking, or thinking about food she is often writing about food. Having recently left a role at the Heart Foundation where she was National Nutrition Advisor, she’s joined the My Food Bag team and works closely with the chefs and Development Kitchen team to source ingredients from 200+ mainly NZ-based suppliers and ensure meals are brimming with goodness. @nutritionwithlils

Waikato

Logan Wait - Food Entrepreneur

Logan (Ngāti Tūmatauenga) lives on the family farm and is CEO & Founder at Earth First Food Ltd. Taking a stand against the global food system, the way it treats our farmers, its impact on our soil, and on our wellbeing; Earth First is building a local food network that prioritises the biological health of soil, animal welfare, and human nutrition. Their NOMAD Unit travels from farm to farm processing Forward Orders of meat that customers place on Earth First Food. Previously, Logan was CEO & Co-Founder of Eco Portal, he holds a Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering, and enjoys gardening with his partner and their 11-month-old son. @knowyourfoodnz

Jaron Slipper - Chef

Jaron is the food and beverage manager and chef at the Agrodome in Rotorua, where they prioritise using locally sourced ‘farm to table’ food. Having grown up on a sheep farm in Invercargill, he now lives on a lifestyle block in South Waikato and is passionate about gardening. working the farm and often thinks about ways to better help the environment. With over 20 years experience as a chef he is focused on cooking sustainably, with less waste and is committed to serving fresh, locally grown ingredients to strengthen the New Zealand story for our global visitors. @jaronslipper / @agrodrome

Luke Andrews - Butcher / Farmer

Luke is a young whole animal butcher who works in his family business, Wholly Cow Butchery. They farm and finish prime beef and lamb, processing them in their on-farm micro abattoir. As the lead butcher and retail butchery manager, he prepares, cuts and sells all of the meat for local customers in their independently owned butchery in Cambridge in the Waikato. He’s come a long way, having grown up attending the farmer markets every weekend to help establish the family business, which he is now a major part of. He’s grateful for an upbringing that has taught him the importance of the relationship between the farmer and the eater. @whollycowbutchery

Te Moana a Toi / Bay of Plenty

Monique Macfarlane - Educator / Biodynamic Grower

Monique is a holistic food systems facilitator and educator who teaches a variety of workshops including biodynamics, planting by the moon, no-dig food growing and self sufficiency as well as consulting. She also contributes a beautiful biodynamic planting and gardening cosmic calendar to OrganicNZ magazine each issue. Currently based on 8ha in Waihi that is certified organic and co-created with biodynamic principles, her heartfelt passion for food, localisation, and thriving nature is the foundation of all she does. She loves to grow, loves to cook, loves to eat and wants to help more people to have access to delicious nutrient dense holistic food. @_natural_wisdom_

Varsh Lutchman - Food Photographer / IT

Varsh is a food & beverage photographer, and allergy friendly recipe developer. She is the ‘Head Geek’ behind Foodographer - a food & beverage content creation studio based in Tauranga. As a South African Indian woman and mum, who has lived in Aotearoa for over 25 years, she has always had a great interest in anything food related - from eating it to experimenting with it and photographing it. She is an advocate for changing how inclusive the food world needs to become, in order to allow those with allergies to still be able to enjoy and connect, through food. She’s also a web developer and has a Bachelor's degree in IT. @foodographer.nz

Te Tairāwhiti / Gisborne

Sam Rowland - Environmentalist

Sam is an environmentalist, conservationist, nature system-change expert, vege gardener, preserver and composter. She understands the positive role that the food system can have in creating a future where nature is thriving in Aotearoa. As a self-confessed ‘nature-nerd’, Sam works on system-change and grassroots movements to establish opportunities for people and organisations to be connected and take action for nature. She is deeply passionate for te taiao and leads a piece of work at the Sustainable Business Network that looks at how we create system change to help nature regenerate in Aotearoa New Zealand. @sam_nznature

Taranaki

Amber Mathew - Food Writer

Amber is a food writer/blogger who has spent the past two years creating content to promote the local food scene in Taranaki - through her blog ‘Tasty in Taranaki’. From farms and butcher shops to authentic French pastry bakers and handmade pasta makers - if there's something delicious being grown, cooked, or created in the Taranaki region, she likes to celebrate and support the small businesses that are doing the mahi. She has written for local Taranaki publications including Live & MOOD Magazine and served as Market Coordinator for the Taranaki Farmers Market. @tastyintaranaki

Palmerston North - Te Papaioea

Summer Rangimaarie Wright - Dietitian / PhD Researcher

Summer is a dietitian and researcher, currently doing a PhD as part of Te Rangahau Taha Wheako mō ngā Kai o Āpōpō/Consumer Dimensions of Future Foods, where her research is focused on Māori enterprise and plant-based foods. She is also a climate-health researcher in association with Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, where they are exploring the contribution of mātauranga Māori to climate health outcomes in Aotearoa. She trained as a Dietitian at the University of Auckland and sees kai as a lever for fundamentally transforming the ways we relate to nature, animals, and each other. She also represents Te Kāhui Manukura o Kai Ora (Māori Dietitian Rōpū) on the Dietitians NZ Council. @sumwamp

Wairarapa

Alex Morrissey - Organic Vegetable Grower

Alex is an organic regenerative food grower and the co-founder/managing director of Little Farms - which provides weekly organic seasonal vegetable boxes to the Wairarapa and Wellington with food from other Wairarapa growers (including her own.) She lives on a 1/4 acre market garden in the small rural town of Pirinoa in South Wairarapa, with her husband and two kids. Her ‘vegetable wonderland’ has about 20 different species in each garden bed. She’s across social media sharing behind the scenes of the veggie box business to show people what it takes to get food from seed to their doorstep. Alex is also a garden educator where she hosts workshops, and community events and gives free gardening advice online. @wearelittlefarm / @wearelittlefarmsboxes

Kāpiti Coast

Sarah Hopkinson - Farmer / Writer / Teacher

Sarah is an earth dreamer, a front yard farmer of ancient ideas, and a curriculum designer for thriving futures. She grows regenerative organic food at The Green Garden, a suburban farm on Te Atiawa ki Kāpiti whenua, where she focuses on syntropic principles to create nutrient-dense food for her family and community. Alongside regenerative education, Sarah works in curriculum design with special interests in environmental education, Te Tiriti justice, and Pākehā identity. She’s also written several articles about the importance of reimagining our relationship to land and food production.​​ @thegreengardennz

Pōneke / Wellington

Eden Skipper - Mahika Kai Specialist / Podcaster

Eden (Ngāi Tahu, Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, Ngāti Kahangunu ki Wairoa) is a Māori boy who is connecting food, whakapapa, people and place to Wairewa. He hosts a podcaster called Tiaki Kai Tiaki Oranga (healthy kai healthy wellbeing) who focuses specifically on how financial wellbeing may impact our health. He works for MPI and loves to forage, dive and gather kai and seaweed. He’s currently developing a mahika kai programme for his marae so families who whakapapa to Wairewa know how to gather kai in their own takiwā and is writing a whānau cookbook which includes historic food stories and traditional gathering practices. @TiakiKaiTiakiOranga :

Jack Rainey - Chef / Restaurant Manager

Jack is currently the Restaurant Manager of Everybody Eats Wellington. He is first and foremost a qualified chef with over 15 years of experience and now has a good understanding of both charity and restaurant operations. He’s a big foraging fan and believes food preservation is key to his skill set! He’s deeply passionate about the Everybody Eats kaupapa - a koha-based charitable dining concept that weaves a community and manaakitanga through the reduction of food waste. @mangaweka / @everybodyeatsnz

Chandrika Khullar - Chef

Chandrika is the co-head chef of the well-loved Wellington restaurant, Loretta. Originally from India, food is her absolute reason for being and she feels incredibly lucky to have had the chance to learn about the beauty of spices and Indian food growing up. She loves that now she gets to make a beautiful marriage of the flavors and techniques from both her childhood and her time here in New Zealand. Her ultimate goal is to have a no-waste restaurant and create simple delicious food from humble ingredients - she also believes she’s the keeper of the best secret spice mixes. @chandrikakhullar / @lorettaoncuba​

Joshua Cruzat - Chef

Josh is the senior sous chef and soon-to-be co-head chef at Floriditas in Wellington. He is half Chilean and half Tongan and recently won 2023 Emerging Chef of the Year at the Felix Wellington Hospitality Awards. He spends every spare minute at Floriditas working on his craft and learning whatever it can teach him, and loves how hospitality is a place that encourages discipline, growth, and community. ​Josh believes there is more to food than just cooking the best meals and appreciates the shared love of food you can find everywhere from local producers and fish mongers to community gardeners, organic specialists and even the delivery drivers! @just_your_average_cook_ / @floriditas​

Victoria Bernard - Educator / Teacher

Victoria is an educator and teacher living in her dream job as Curriculum and Community Relations Manager for Garden to Table. She is on a mission to change Aotearoa’s future by engaging tamariki in the world of food all around them. She writes teaching resources for teachers and has a love of good, simple food and the skills it takes to get it to the table. These resources make links between subject areas by connecting students to ratios in maths by making salad dressings, connecting kids to the ancient technologies of early Māori through the Aotearoa Histories Curriculum through growing kūmara and connecting them to their digestive system through Rude Food. Through her work, she is committed to bringing children into the food conversation. @gardentotablenz

Fiona Williams - Nutritionist

Fiona is an Associate Registered Nutritionist who is passionate about all things kai. She currently works for He Puāwai Trust, an organisation that is working toward resilient local kai across Te Awa Kairangi / Lower Hutt. She believes food is a powerful tool we have to benefit our hauora wellbeing. In her mahi she aims to support healthy people, through investing in education and hands on experience with kai to build kai resilience. Having just completed her Master of Applied Science in Advanced Nutrition Practice, here she studied nutrition, food security, health promotion and how kai impacts health. Fiona's Linked In​

Abigail Stewart - Red Meat Industry Graduate

Abigail is a passionate female working in New Zealand’s Red Meat Industry, as a 2023/2024 Alliance Farmers’ Produce Graduate. After completing her Bachelor of Science in Human Nutrition and Business Management at Otago University, she received one of the few graduate positions, where she rotates around all aspects of the business, and is currently based at the Dannevirke Meat Processing Plant. She has a special interest in the red meat industry and NZ’s primary sector and is eager to add value to our food system in this space. She’s loved learning to aitch-bone in the boning room and even ran her own egg and produce distribution business during high school. @abbystewarts

Whakatū / Nelson

Lauren Yap - Brewer / Winemaker

Lauren is a brewer, winemaker, and potter, who loves hops, grapes and honey bees and is passionate about inclusivity and equity in the beer and wine industries. Hailing from Portland, Oregon - it was here she studied environmental science and horticulture. Alongside her partner Jim, she owns Brood Fermentation, where they farm an organic vineyard and make minimal intervention wine and brew unfiltered beer. At her day job in the hop industry, she preaches the good word of NZ grown hops to brewers all over the world. As a trained beer judge, she also sits on the board of Pink Boots New Zealand, a nonprofit that supports women in the craft beer sector through education and scholarships. @lozyap / @broodfermentation

Canterbury / Waitaha

Olivia Johnson - Fermenter / Small Food Producer

Olivia is a mum, wife, artist, fermenter and small food producer. Through her business Wild Child Ferments, she is working hard to create a product for the North Canterbury community that makes them feel great. She primarily makes sauerkraut for sale at her local markets, and through her range she wants to encourage people to think about where their food comes from, what’s in it and the processes it goes through to get to the product they see, smell and taste. She believes fermentation is a beautiful transformative process that occurs through respecting and nurturing microbes. @wildchildfermentsnz

Micah Leal - Writer / Cook

Micah is a cook, recipe developer, and writer who is endlessly curious about people. He grew up in the American South in a bi-racial home and has worked as a writer for a national magazine called ‘Southen Living’. He’s also worked as a pastry chef at an award-winning restaurant in South Carolina that focused on heirloom ingredients native to the region. His mahi has primarily led him to understand both the science behind the cooking that takes place in our home kitchens as well as the histories and cultural traditions undergirding how we experience our food. @micahleal

Eileen Prasad - Chef

Eileen is a Fijian-born chef with a strong heritage mix of Polynesian and Indian. She came to New Zealand when she was just 12 years old, was brought up in Taranaki and has been living, studying and working in Christchurch for the past 6 years. She completed her Diploma in Advanced Cookery Level 5 at ARA, where she was named top cookery student in 2019. Since then she has been working as a chef across Christchurch, currently for the Aikmans Group at various establishments including Aikmans and Brigittes. She is looking forward to getting a chance to represent her ethnic group on a bigger platform. @iameileenprasad

Kaitlin Dawson - Food Waste Champion

Kaitlin leads NZ Food Waste Champions 12.3 Trust, a nonprofit that has a vision of an Aotearoa where food is valued and not wasted alongside Kai Commitment, an agreement for businesses to reduce their food waste. With a personal drive to find collaborative solutions to our systemic problems, Kaitlin has entrenched herself in waste minimisation for the past decade. When she isn’t tackling waste you’ll find her exploring the hills around her home in Ōtautahi with her young family. @_kaitlindawson / @nzchampions123 / @kaicommitment

Theo Dubost - Chef

Theo is a chef with a background in classic French cuisine and is currently working at Greystone in North Canterbury. He’s had years of experience across France and Canada, including three restaurants holding coveted Michelin stars. Since being in New Zealand he has learned a lot about local produce and seasonality and is passionate about producing food in harmony with the local environment. At Greystone he’s enjoying having the freedom to create dishes from organic and sustainable farm-to-table produce and changing the menu regularly to reflect the seasons. @tdubost / @greystonewines

Ōtākou / Otago

Daniellé du Plooy - PHD Student

Danielle is a compassionate, values-driven individual who deeply cares for both the human and the more-than-human world. She strives to help cultivate impactful socio-ecological relationships and strengthen community resilience through thoughtful action and everyday decision-making. She is currently nearing the second year of her PhD at the University of Otago, focusing on human behavior and food networks.

Alby Hailes - Food Writer / Doctor

Alby is a doctor, mental health advocate and food writer, with a passion for flavour-packed food that makes us feel good. His work and food philosophy are built around the power of food in connecting us to whenua, whānau and self to promote mental wellness. For the past decade he’s been writing recipes for New Zealanders which has led him to recently publishing his debut cookbook Good Vibes: Eat well with feel-good flavours. Knowledge and understanding of mental health (from medical education, work and lived experience), and the wide-reaching impacts of our food systems and nutrition on mental wellbeing. @albyhailes

Murihiku / Southland

Louise Evans - Storyteller / Designer

Lou is the imaginative force behind Wee Magazine, dedicated to eating her way through Southland's many food stories. As a storyteller, connector, and experiential designer, her work is a celebration of the creativity, craftsmanship, and courage of Southland's foodies and artisans and their love for what they do. Previously the Chief Activator at COIN South, she connected and nurtured food-based startups in the region. She is driven to continue to elevate Southland's food culture however she can. @weeandfree

Nicole McKnight - Regenerative Flower Farmer / Food Grower

Nicole grows stunning sustainable flowers, delicious nutritious food and open-pollinated seeds - together - creating thriving ecosystems that support soil, plant and animal health. She dreams big and thinks creatively. Above all she truly believes in the transformative power of growing and connecting to our kai for individuals and communities. Alongside her husband and two boys, over the past decade they have been transforming their land into a permaculture farm where they grow a large percentage of what they eat. @festival_farm

Toni Auld - Farmer / Distiller

Toni is a grain and sheep farmer in Southland who alongside her husband has built Auld Farm Distillery from the ground up. Seven years ago they looked beyond traditional farm income streams and started producing award-winning whiskies, gins and other spirits from the wheat, oats and barley grown on their 200-ha Arable farm. Fueled by passion and a vision to create a future for her children and her local community, sustainability, storytelling and connection are super important to her. A budding Clinical Hypnotherapist Toni loves to see and celebrate others’ successes and believes everyone deserves to thrive in life. She and her husband Rob were recently named 2023 Arable Food Champions. @aulddistillery

*Stay tuned over on our Eat NZ Socials over the next few weeks to learn more about these epic humans.*

“I based my assignment on wild kai, two flowers that can be found everywhere near where I reside. Something insignificant, two flowers often disregarded as weeds and pests.

These two poems show their hidden beauty and the value they add to our plates.

Making use of the wild kai around us no matter how small and that even two inconspicuous weeds can provide medicine and food.”

Images and words by Siobhān Hemingway. @siobhanirisrose

Our family’s wild food gathering location is definitely the ocean. We spend time on the East and West coast beaches of the north island, and own a beloved dive boat called “black dog cat” it assists us in getting to remote locations. 

Surfing is our number one hobby but when the conditions are flat and calm we're happy to ditch the surfboards for dive gear and head out on a hunt.  

My husband leads the expedition. The organising starts the night before with a stock take of dive gear, bait, cray gloves, and the list goes on. On the day of the hunt we are up early, coffee pot on, sandwiches being made and before we know it we’re backing down the boat ramp.  The look of excitement on our faces directly reflects how much we love to connect to the ocean. 

We choose a rough location and nosy around the rocks until it feels like the "right spot". Masks and snorkel on, check. Flippers on, check. One by one we fall into the abundant, underwater ecosystem, with gratitude.

The journey of discovery begins. My husband is like a strong kingfish underwater and I can tell the connection he has with his hunter-gatherer ancestry. It’s a beautiful occurrence to witness. He dances to the rhythm of the currents and seems to go into a hunting trance. It’s a challenge to keep up, we all go into our own personal journey of underwater discovery. Free diving, each breath matters and holds new possibilities of finding something interesting and if we’re lucky edible.  Finding a cave with a few crays, there’s great excitement, a sense of possibility that we’ll enjoy the fruits of the hunt coming to fruition.

We respectfully take what we can feed our family for the night, this is so important, protecting the ocean’s resources, we start the journey back home to clean and prepare the meal.

I start to think about how we will wine match with the kai moana and how we’ll prepare it. 

After washing down the boat and dealing to the gear, the food prep begins. I gut the crays, give them a good clean out, slice them open fresh and lather them with garlic butter. Get the BBQ nice and hot. 

I prepare garlic aioli, Freshly dug roasted potatoes, and a simple rocket and parmesan salad. 

When the family sits down to eat, there is a huge appreciation for our kai and where it has come from. We feel so lucky. 

With Matariki around the corner, I am contemplating the abundant resources the earth provides and how to protect it. Also the knowledge and skills of our ancestors, how and what was foraged, and all that is to be learned. 

I look forward to preparing and celebrating Matariki with a family feast and connection. 

Words and photos by #EatNZKaitaki Ella Bailey of Momona Farms.

Growing up as a farm kid in Aotearoa, foraging for wild field mushrooms was a cherished part of my childhood. In our rolling paddocks, after a hot dry summer and autumn rains, the land would come alive with a bounty of little white button mushrooms. It was a seasonal tradition for us, from Autumn through to Winter.

With buckets in hand, my siblings and I would eagerly venture into the paddocks, filled with excitement and wonder. The hunt began, as we carefully plucked the mushrooms from the earth, collecting as many as we could until our buckets were brimming with nature's treasure. The aroma of the earth and the thrill of discovery filled the air.

Back at home, our family kitchen transformed into a culinary playground. Mushrooms on toast became a delightful breakfast treat, their earthy flavours mingling with the buttery bread. For lunch, pizzas adorned with freshly picked mushrooms danced in the oven, creating a symphony of flavours. And for dinner, creamy mushroom pasta emerged from the stove, its velvety richness comforting our souls.

The abundance of mushrooms was a joy. We sometimes had so many that freezing became our ally, preserving their freshness for the months ahead. But one year, the surplus was so great that we decided to share our harvest with the community. We set up a roadside stall, with a small table, adorned with baskets of mushrooms and a handwritten sign. The excitement as children when someone would stop to purchase our foraged treasures.

Looking back, I realise how unique and special this experience was. As a country kid, I assumed that everyone partook in the adventure of foraging for field mushrooms. But now I understand that it was a part of the Kiwi kid lifestyle, a connection to the land and a celebration of nature's gifts. It was a reminder of the simple joys and the nourishing traditions that shape our lives.

As Matariki approaches, I am filled with gratitude for the Mahika kai experts who have preserved and celebrated our traditional food practices. Through foraging for field mushrooms, I was connected to the land, my heritage, and the flavours that will forever linger in my heart.

Words and photos by Brittany Morison of Tomtit Farm @tomtitfarm

Eat NZ Kaitaki ‘Talking Plates’  Thursday 11th May 

6.30pm 

LTD

$180 for food / $230 for food + drinks match.

This five-course feast will be presented by five young chefs from within our Eat NZ Kaitaki - a collective of next-generation food leaders. 

The meal will be led by Eat New Zealand founder chef Giulio Sturla of Mapu in Lyttelton. They’ll be celebrating producers from within our Kaitaki collective including: Tora Collective, Oceanspeared, Mangaroa Farms & Cranky Goat Cheese.

Using plates of food to tell our stories has always been baked into the DNA of Eat New Zealand.  The following hashtags capture in simple ways values that are complex and hugely important to us as a movement. 

From #EatTheWholeFish to #NZNativeIngredients, the conversation has evolved to include #LotsOfLittle and #RepurposeTheSurplus.

Ideas such as #KnowYourFarmer  #KnowYourFisher  #EatNZGrains  #GrowFoodCommunities and our perennial #WildFoodLove are hard-wired into who we are.

You can experience these plates, along with their own vision of the future, in Wellington on Thursday 11th May as part of Wellington on a Plate.

It will be a meal you’ll be discussing around many future tables, make sure you’re at this one!

The Wine List: Pouring what comes next…

As part of the event we will be showcasing these three incredible winemakers from within our Eat NZ Kaitaki collective.

Siren Wine by Ashleigh Barrowman is made by a woman who has worked within the natural wine industry for the last 10 years. Ashleigh has an impressive resume; having trained under some of the most well regarded vignerons around the world in Burgundy, Jura, Sicily, Victoria and home here in Marlborough. Having worked across everything from grape growing and pruning, through to production and international distribution to importation and retail. Siren Wine is her passion project, and the accumulation of many years learning from her mentors. Ashleigh produces certified organic, single vineyard wines from Marlborough, New Zealand. All are unfined, unfiltered, wild fermented and contain low to no sulphites, reflective of time and place.

Huntress Wines is a small brand by Jannine Rickards (Ngā puhi & Ngā te Rangi) who is based in the Wairarapa. She is a keen hunter, forager and foodie, who is comitted to full utilisation of the animals she hunts. Jannine makes thoughtful, expressive and complex wines from organic grapes from the Wairarapa and Hawkes Bay regions. They are textural wines that pair really well with kai, and are a direct reflection of the land (whenua).

Vita Wines are made by Will Lyons-Bowman (Ngāpuhi) in the Waipara Valley in North Canterbury, New Zealand. Will has spent his whole wine-life in organic and biodynamic vineyards - Black Estate, Millton and Greystone (NZ) and Olek Bondonio (Italy) - which have heavily influenced his growing and making philosophy. He produces wine that is brimming with energy. For him living vineyards make living wines! Hand harvested and organically farmed the fruit is treated simply, allowing it to be a lively, pure and moreish expression of the land where it grew. Will lives in Ōtautahi with his wife Jane and two naughty sheep dogs, Mary and Dot.

If you aren’t able to join us in Wellington, make sure you are following along on our socials to see some of the action behind the scenes next week.

He manga āwhā

Calm after the storm

The sun is shining and the breeze is gentle, the waves consistently roll in and crash on the shoreline.  Miro the cat is super friendly and giving me lots of cuddles and is trying to step on the keypad as I type because she is clearly more important than me trying to catch up on emails – she is probably right. 

I’m at Tora on the Wairarapa’s east coast, house sitting for my good friends and it’s my first day off in over seven weeks.  I’m completely shattered and trying to just breathe and reset, I cry at nothing.  I think I’m just so exhausted from continuously being ‘on the go’ that the idea of slowing down is a challenge.  This is going to be just what I needed after the intensity of the 2023 grape harvest for my full-time mahi at Urlar and for my side hustle Huntress.

I’ve got a pile of books to read on the table and all I have achieved is breakfast and a walk to the point to explore the rockpools, watch the kelp dance in the tide and try to drop down a notch from the go-go energy levels required to get the grapes in and fermented.  It is midday on day one of two off.  I’m super grateful for my amazing assistant winemaker and her calm and supporting presence in the winery, I can fully rely on her to look after the babies while I am gone.

This year is my 20^th season making wine.  Each year has been different and many have had challenges to contend with.  Somehow this year seemed more difficult but maybe I am just getting old.  Weathered like the rocks that get battered by Tangaroa’s waves I feel weathered by this season.  I know this is just a state of being and I will recover with time.

This year the constant rain put pressure on the team, always scrambling to keep up and then having to wait and pick around more rain.  Grapes are more resilient than I had given them credit.  They endured the season like we did and some pockets of absolute gems sparkled.  But at what cost?  The work to keep on top of canopy growth and under vine management has been continuous, never have I seen a summer and autumn so green and so sodden.  We are entering a winter saturated.  I think this really cannot be good for our soils and therefore the plants we try to grow in them. 

I literally drove thru flood waters to get here yesterday.  Slightly nerve racking in my car not having the ute to be above them.  We had another heavy rain warning and it bucketed down for about 24 hours.  I’m tired of asking how many millimetres did we get.  Doesn’t seem to matter now anyway.  We are almost at the completion of harvest 2023.  Some late harvest grapes to look at next week and a few red ferments to press and barrel down, then the massive clean up which can tend to drag out.  Harvest staff keen to move onto the next adventure, I still need to entice to help finish tidy up the winery post the chaos.  We set the date for the harvest party this week and I’ll do some interesting tastings with them all.  Try to keep the spirits up, I know from experience after such an intense amount of mahi it is easy to feel a bit flat when things return to ‘normal’.

But does it ever really slow down?  How do I make lifestyle changes and flick the switch in my head so I can be more rested and content.  I watch the seals soak in the sun and the bees forage on the dandelion flowers standing erect and open to returned sunshine.

How can I switch off when I need to think about bottling, sales, dinners and speaking at the organic conference in June which is currently filling me with dread and anxiety.

The only answer really is to introduce new habits and prioritise them over all else.  Prioritise myself you say.  Something I have not been very good at…all I want this year is health and wellbeing.  Where to start?  I’m off to get the yoga mat out of the car, some yin and breath work and then another wander to the coast might be the answer for today.  Let’s see if Miro the cat approves.

Kua hu ate marama

Something has completed a full cycle….  (Almost..!)

Words and images from Jannine Rickards of Huntress Wines - follow her mahi over on @huntress_wines.

As we watched the devastation across the city from the Auckland Floods and Cyclone Gabrielle, one thing that really stood out to me was the number of growers affected.

I’ve never seen anything like the onion soup that was running down the streets of Pukekohe. Onions are typically harvested and then left in the paddocks to dry out for a few days before being sent to markets and stores. This year those few “drying” days, included Friday 27th January.

Just two weeks later, we were hit by Cyclone Gabrielle which took out crops including apples, kūmara, grapes, pears and carrots, just to name a few.

Given that I work in food waste prevention, I found the recent losses absolutely devastating. It’s a good reminder that food waste is a huge contributor to the climate crisis, accounting for up to 10% of total greenhouse gases. While our food systems are vulnerable to the effects the impending climate events bring.

Looking into my own backyard it’s clear to see that this year’s national harvest is likely to look a little different. I’m a very amateur home gardener, with a couple of small patches that are usually planted with veggies.

Every year around Labour Weekend, I get the summer crop in. I always have a zucchini, they produce so much fruit, it’s versatile and delicious.  Once you know how easy they are to grow and how many you get off a single plant it’s very easy to despise paying for them. Anyone who’s ever grown them will be all too familiar with the overnight marrow mystery. This year, however, I’ve had not one marrow, not a single one. And it’s not because I’ve been super vigilant. Instead, I’ve been eating possibly the smallest zucchini ever. The reason being, if they’ve been left on the plant too long, they’ve started to rot. The culprit is Auckland's never-ending rainy summer. The plant has had way more water than it needs, nowhere near enough sun and the soil that the zucchini are sitting on is wet, rather than the dry bed that lets them grow up. So instead of being on marrow watch, I’ve had to make the call to leave them to get another day bigger and risk them going bad before they’ve even got good.

My tomatoes have also been really badly affected.  The rain from the weekend of the Auckland floods, followed by the wind from Cyclone Gabrielle has done no favours to my plants. They’ve been on struggle street all summer and I think what was looking like the best tomato of the season was a casualty of the weather. 

The only real star of this year’s home harvest has been our feijoas. We have two trees which usually only give us about 20 tiny fruit. But this year, we’ve already had more fruit than we could keep up with eating.  I needed to bake a cake for the office this week so feijoa it was. In recent years I’ve started baking without recipes and did this the other day. To my surprise, one of our team described it as the “best cake I’ve ever eaten” as she took another mouthful. I really did not believe her until I tasted it for myself, it was so light and fluffy. So here’s the recipe (from memory) for you to try at home.

200g Naturli Vegan butter (that’s the whole block)

¾ cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

½ cup LSA

½ cup coconut flour

1 cup flour 

2 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

¼ cup oat milk

1 cup of feijoa flesh

Start with the butter at room temperature (or I put in the microwave for 15 seconds, don’t let it melt), add it to your mixer with the sugar and cream it up real good. Add vanilla and mix through. Add all of the dried ingredients and mix together. Then add the milk. You might think you want more milk, but the feijoas will be adding a lot of liquid, so trust me on this one. Lastly, mix through the feijoas. Pour mixture into a greased tin (I used a ring tin to cut down cooking time)

Cook at 180°C until cooked through, brown on top and coming away from the sides. Check at 40 minutes and continue cooking checking every 5 if required. 

When cool, ice with the following:

2 tsp Naturli Vegan butter

1 cup icing sugar

2 tsp boiling water (add one at a time)

2 tsp vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl either by hand or with the mixer and ice with a hot knife. 

Words, images & recipe by #EatNZKaitaki Michal Garvey, Founder of Foodprint - a food rescue App that helps you reduce food waste and enjoy delicious meals at a fraction of the price. See more over on @foodprintnz

When I think of harvest these words come to mind: lush, bounty, seasons, fresh, health, confusion, priviledge, birthright, climate change, land, connection, food, deep gratitude, joy, community.

It has become a privilege to grow your own food, to harvest one's own meals. Why a privilege? In order to grow and harvest you must have land, space, resources, knowledge and time. What was once for many a birthright is now a privilege. 

For myself, there’s nothing more grounding than working with the soil, foraging mushrooms in a forest, or collecting seaweed from rockpools. It boosts my mental health and fills me with joy. More than joy – effervescent happiness. As a foodie, that first spoonful of distinct feijoa pulp, the first taste of the beloved fruit in early autumn, picked from my mother’s garden, is soulful. Soul full. Perhaps we should step back from this busy world, to delight in the small but thrilling act of harvest. 

2 cups prepared fruit (hulled feijoas)

2 cups sugar of choice

2 cups vinegar of choice (I use apple cider vinegar)

Vanilla bean, sliced lengthways, optional

Add all ingredients to a saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer. Take off the heat, cover, and leave overnight so the flavours infuse. Strain (reserving the fruit for delicious sour desserts or chutneys). Store the strained shrub in the fridge for up to five days, or bring to a gentle boil and add to hot sterilised jars to enjoy at a later date (your winter self will be beyond grateful for this). 

Serve feijoa shrub over ice diluted with soda water, to taste. For a 10/10 cocktail, add gin (of course).

Hope in harvests. Stepping back, (re)connecting with the whenua, respecting the soil. 

“My own inquiry into the grounds for hope has received two great reinforcements in recent years. One came from the recognition of how powerful are the altruistic, idealistic forces already at work in the world. Most of us would say, if asked, that we live in a capitalist society, but vast amounts of how we live our everyday lives – our interactions with and commitments to family lives, friendships, avocations, membership in social, spiritual and political organisations – are in essence noncapitalist or even anticapitalist, made up of things we do for free, out of love and on principle.” – Rebecca Solnit

With the advance of climate change, it’s wildly optimistic to be hopeful, yet it’s needed more than ever. Hope in action. Hope in community. Hope in coming together to harvest, to connect, to believe in a bright future. 

As I write this, acknowledging the reality of Aotearoa today – less than eight weeks since the flooding and cyclone Gabrielle forever changed many of our communities – my appreciation and need for harvest is amplified. In times of uncertainty and adversity, my gratitude for harvest runs deep. Living in Piha, a tiny surf town on the west coast of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, I’ve witnessed the impact of climate change, the loss of harvest, and the aching need for hope. The local permaculture hub and food forest are temporarily down. The cyclone combined with a ferocious landslide through the valley means they’re hibernating, licking their wounds, assessing and tackling damage, making a new sturdy plan. It’s not just harvests that are lost – it’s also the meeting place, the shared community, the conversations, the connection. 

Harvest also makes me think of food security, seed security, and the future of the whenua. In darling Piha, there’s talk of collecting local native seeds, coming together as a community and making Seed Bombs to hurl onto unstable land, slips and landslides. (Seed Bombs are handmade rounds of mud packed with seeds, ready to germinate when it rains). This community action is a grass-roots act of hope and togetherness, of future harvests. 

Words and photo by Sophie Merkens @sophiemerkens, she’s also the author of GROW - a series of stories and photos about Wāhine finding connection through food across Aotearoa. You can order a signed copy here.

When a ¼ of a bed of basil desperately needs harvesting, and there’s no time to make THAT much pesto... We’ll try blanching this bed of fresh basil first, before popping it in the freezer!

It’s Autumn Equinox in this part of the world which is the perfect opportunity to take stock of how the growing season has been and how we set ourselves up over the cooler months.   We only planted two beds of basil in our greenhouse this year (and a quarter of a bed outside) to see how it would perform; and we’re beyond stoked and grateful to see how healthy, fragrant and abundant this crop has been. The basil outside however struggled in comparison, and has meant making the call to ‘crop it out’ completely.  But cropping out doesn’t necessarily mean ‘destined for the compost’… As much as I LOVE composting, my intention in the market garden this year is to be more conscious about storing and preserving food, especially when it is in abundance and still in relatively good health/condition to safely eat.

So back to the BASIL… In order to have straight up basil to add to a recipe over the cooler months is to freeze it.  It is possible to dry basil but IMHO the dried basil lacks flavour in comparison to frozen basil.  

The best way to preserve fresh basil is to first blanch it in boiling water for a few seconds (30 seconds max), then remove them with a slotted spoon and place it in an ice bath. Remove the leaves from the ice bath and place them on a paper towel or clean dish towel and pat dry. Roll the leaves in a short cigar-shaped roll and place them in a zip-lock bag or freezer-safe container.   This makes it convenient to add to dishes right away, without having to wait for the basil to thaw if placed in ice cubes.  

Because basil will go black in colder temperatures, blanching the leaves and then placing them in an ice bath means the leaves will hold their green colour.   The best part is, frozen basil will last 4-6 months in the freezer meaning you can add it to any favourite pasta sauce dish, or salad dressing at your leisure all year round!  And yes, this also means pesto from frozen basil is still a possibility :)

Words and photos by Lydia Thomsen - @agreeablegrub

Today (21st of March) is the Autumn equinox in New Zealand, a time of balance and reflection. It's a time to acknowledge the equal length of day and night and to embrace the shifting of seasons as the leaves begin to change colours and the days grow shorter.

At Tomtit Farm we begin to breathe a sigh of relief as we prepare to close the book on this somewhat hard season of growing. At this time of year we usually have fields overflowing with an abundance of fresh produce, from juicy tomatoes and crisp cucumbers to plump pumpkins and sweet kūmara. It is usually a time to revel in the harvest of the land and to give thanks for the gifts that Papatūānuku has bestowed upon us.

But this year we find ourselves in a place where the crops look tired and the harvest is not as plentiful as usual due to the challenges of the unpredictable weather this season. From a late season crippling frost, to too much rain, not enough sunshine hours, damaging winds and multiple floods in the Waikato, all of these pose a threat to the delicate balance of the growing cycle.

As a small-scale farm we are hugely affected by these unpredictable weather patterns and the effects of climate change. With a high dependence on natural resources, we must be resilient and learn to pivot our business to adapt to changing circumstances. As the season throws curve balls we continue to come up with creative ways to keep our heads high and stick to what we know and love best, which is growing, caring for our soils, and making food available to our community.

Despite these challenges, we give thanks for the produce that has been harvested, appreciating that we are very lucky to have a harvest and are able to share kai with our community. Reflecting on the season that has passed is a nice way to connect Papatūānuku and to acknowledge the hard work and dedication that went into the harvest.

Words and photos by Brittany Morison @tomtitfarm

Harvest brings an opportunity for gratitude and appreciation for what the garden provides to nourish us! And it can be quite magical to see the bounty from all the mahi and time that has gone before - the full seed-to-plate journey.

At Kelmarna we celebrate harvest every day via our shared lunches. Each and every day, we cook a healthy, veggie based meal to be shared with our staff and volunteers. Not only is it a lovely way to thank volunteers for their contribution, it’s also an important opportunity for connection. Volunteers get to know each other over a plate of good food that they’ve helped to grow, freshly harvested from the garden around us. It’s a place to share everyday conversations, joy and community spirit, and we hope that it’s a place everyone can feel welcome and included.

Our lunches primarily consist of produce grown in the gardens here. In summer potatoes are a regular feature, then in autumn and winter, our stored stocks of pumpkin come into play. These are grown specially to provide for our lunches in more marginal parts of the garden that are not prime for market gardening. We harvest edible weeds (there’s always an abundance of those around) as cooking greens, things like galinsoga, alexanders, and nasturtium, which we typically throw into a quick stir-fry-type dish. And we always have a fresh salad - populated with a multitude of different leaves for an abundance of flavour and nutrition. These leaves are seconds, still perfectly good to eat, but either slightly too big or with too many insect bites out of them to sell in our farm shop. It’s another way we reduce waste, and ensure we make the most of what harvest has to offer.

Bread is a welcome addition too. The bread course comes via surplus bread donations from local bakeries, which are collected by Dada V (of the AMURT charity). He gathers and distributes loaves to many different community groups around Auckland, providing a wonderful community service!

Lunchtime like this encourages us to take an important and necessary pause in the middle of our busy work day. We eat, we chat, we sit, we digest. It’s a more mindful, intentional way to experience a meal. And we believe this whole approach of sharing harvest and a cooked lunch together is vital to creating meaningful relationships, both with each other and this land we farm.

Words and photos from Sarah McFadden of Kelmarna Gardens.