New online Māori food platform making direct kai deals a virtual reality

Grant Kitchen (left) and Rewi Spraggon have created a new online platform to connect Māori suppliers direct with the Māori consumers. Photo / Supplied

A new online food platform will connect Māori fisherman, Māori divers, Māori farmers with whānau and marae directly, effectively cutting out the middle man.

Hangi Master Rewi Spraggon and mate Grant Kitchen will launch Kauta. The online platform brings together Māori food providers to a single site and will be unveiled during Matariki.

The concept has been a work in progress, Spraggon said, but it had to be done right to uphold the mana of the kai and producers.

"If you gathered honey in the north or food in the south, nuts, avocado, kaimoana, dairy, lamb, the whole gambit where all kai providers to this platform were all Māori," Spraggon told the Herald.

"They have to fit in with our values of kai sovereignty, sustainability and looking after our whenua and moana. Those are the pillars of our kaupapa."

The Kauta vision statement is: "Know where your kai comes from and celebrate the hands that prepared it."

Spraggon said the Kauta concept is based on a special place on a marae where all food is taken upon arrival.

"The kauta is the gateway to the marae. This is a virtual gateway," he said.

"From the Kauta, it is distributed to the many places on the marae and in the whare kai like the freezers, the cupboards."

Connecting supply and demand made sense, Spraggon said.

"If you are an inland marae and don't have access to kaimoana, crayfish, paua and have a elder who has passed and want to honour that person, you go to the Kauta platform and order direct with the fisherman/diver," he said.

He said, as an example, he was last month asked to cater for a number of senior Air New Zealand staff for the launch of their new safety film.

"I called to our guy in the Bluff for paua, crayfish and blue cod and he went out that day to fill our order and it was with us the next day," Spraggon said. "It was packed to retain the freshness."