Social media influencer Kate Hall is challenging herself to buy only New Zealand-made food when grocery shopping this year. She is one of many Kiwis who practise ‘ethical eating’, which aims to support local growers and help the environment simultaneously. Carly Gibbs speaks with Hall and others who follow the practice.
What if all you ate this year was New Zealand cuisine?
It’s a challenge Kate Hall has committed to.
Since January 1, the Instagram “sustainable lifestyle inspirer” has bought only New Zealand-made or grown food and will continue doing so until next year.
“It’s pushed me to strictly follow ethical eating,” she says.
Ethical eating means being mindful of how and what you eat because of its potential environmental and moral impact. It also includes choosing sustainably sourced ingredients, ethically produced foods and eco-friendly packaging.
But before you give a “collective sigh” at this “woke term”, says Juno Scott-Kelly, of Love Food, Hate Waste, know it’s not a new fad, and you don’t have to go entirely zero waste to do it.
Ethical eating began in the 1900s and was born out of necessity. However, given the awakening of consumer understanding of sustainability, some people are only now learning about it.
Tauranga’s Tash McKinnon is an ethical eater who likens it to living the way her grandparents did without the many choices of “junk processed food and drink”.
When at the supermarket, she says to ask yourself, “Would this product be available in 1970?” This leads to the question, “How is it made, and can I make it?”
Shopping off the shelf is convenient, but, thanks to celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s influence in “mindful cooking”, she cooks with ease and can stretch out meals instead of making food using processed, pre-made ingredients.
“You’ve got to have food, but what choices are you making? Can food — including meat — be kept or frozen for another meal?”
Food based on values
Hall, who has 50,000 followers on her Instagram page @ethicallykate and wrote the sustainable living guide Better, Bolder, Different, says small-to-medium-sized food producers are struggling despite New Zealand growing more than you’d expect, from quinoa to buckwheat, bananas, and coffee.
New Zealand produce is cheap if you buy it in season; it’s also healthy because it’s a whole-food diet. And she’s busted the myth that it’s more expensive.
She and her husband, Tim, are perpetual house sitters, which means they don’t have a permanent pantry to store items, so every purchase has a purpose. She buys vegetables from fruit and vegetable shops, farmers’ markets, and online. She has researched that it’s $22.13 cheaper to get an organic subscription box online than to go to the supermarket. She lists 13 options on her website, ethicallykate.com.
When she had long-term access to a pantry, her record was two months without setting foot in a supermarket. She buys groceries in bulk from several stores, depending on where in the country she’s house-sitting (in the Bay of Plenty, it’s Be Organics and Huckleberry).
A typical meal for the 27-year-old is brown lentils cooked with New Zealand-grown Te Mata garlic, organic mince, capsicums, mushrooms, and chillies grown in friends’ gardens.
“You have less variety, but the variety that we’ve been taught we’re all entitled to is not ethical,” she says.
Her self-imposed challenge follows another she did last year when she undertook a wardrobe freeze and didn’t buy new clothes. Almost 200 social media followers have joined her in this year’s challenge.
Rivalling ‘the big guys’
Buying only New Zealand-made products, she’s discovered that her favourite crackers are made in Thailand, her favourite vegan aioli is made in Switzerland, and the tortillas her mum likes are made in Spain.
She now prefers giving money to small, independent, family-run businesses.
“[However,] it’s not just about boycotting the big guys,” she explains. “I’m driven by the desire for food sovereignty for everyone in Aotearoa. Even though I see the incredible benefits of globalisation, I need a moment to return to my local community.”
Before buying food, she questions: “Where did my food come from? How were the people who made my food treated and paid? How did the animals, who are my food, live? How were they killed? What is the extra waste that comes from my food? And how can that be mitigated?”
She still eats meat, but it comes from Premium Game in Marlborough, who “wild hunt”, so there’s a conservation element, too.
Backyards repurposed
Kate Fenwick, of Waste-Ed with Kate, says one way to control your food’s origin is to grow it yourself.
She has a backyard vegetable pod with potatoes, silver beet and herbs. It took her 30 minutes to set up and needs only occasional weeding.
Tash McKinnon and her husband, Philip, bought a spare 450sq m section next to their Tauranga house and created a community garden called Ferg & Co Community Garden in July. It feeds 45 people in their neighbourhood, all jointly working together.
“We were paying a mortgage for four chickens, and I thought, after last year’s cyclone, ‘This is crazy. Let’s open it up and do something productive and community focused’.”
They have two businesses and work hard, but she says she must make the time to know what she eats every night.
“Otherwise, I’m too exhausted, and I will eat crap food. It’s all in the planning, purchasing in bulk — such as meat — and shopping around as our grandparents did.”
Shifting realities
Businesses also note that Kiwis want to be healthy, particularly after Covid-19.
Ōkere Falls Store near Rotorua has a vegan-heavy menu and works hard to use responsible suppliers for free-range produce.
Manager Rachel Atkinson says while the shift is mainly due to a business commitment to the environment and animal welfare, customer preferences, too, have changed.
This has inspired supermarkets to equally commit to sourcing responsibly and locally.
Foodstuffs, whose stores are owned and operated by more than 550 local grocers, says its Pak’nSave, New World, and Four Square stores have the flexibility to source produce from local growers. Keeping it local also means less freight costs and lower prices. However, they will import produce out of season in New Zealand or not grown here.
Produce must adhere to NZGAP and GlobalGAP rules, and any store offering organic and spray-free produce must be verified with independent organic certification.
Hall and Fenwick caution readers to be smart when visiting supermarkets. For example, they say don’t buy US-imported lemons right now; wait until the New Zealand season starts. Eat apples until oranges come out, then stop eating apples. And don’t buy lettuce in colder months.
By 2025, Foodstuffs aims to use 100 per cent reusable, recyclable, or home-compostable packaging across its brand and in-store packaging in its bakery, deli, and produce. This applies to all plastic, fibre, glass, and metal packaging types.
Fenwick cautions that greenwashing exists around eco-packaging, with some brands making “outlandish” claims. So, educate yourself first.
There is no perfect way to enter the world of ethical eating; take small steps.
Scott-Kelly’s starter tips include shopping outside the supermarket’s aisles and opting for Fair Trade if you can’t find local produce such as bananas.
Buy organic and spray-free whenever possible, and learn how to use your whole fruit, vegetable or meat.
Store your food correctly. Wrap leafy greens in a damp tea towel and carrots in an airtight container with a wet cloth.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions: “Where was this seafood sourced, and how was it caught? Can I please have my drink served without a straw? Can you please wrap my sandwich in this container or napkin?”
And if you don’t?
Scott-Kelly says the long-term impact of not increasing ethical eating practices or reducing food waste will affect food security and have implications for climate change, water security and land usage.
By the end of her challenge, Hall hopes to educate her social media followers in understanding the “bounty” New Zealand provides and inspire them to reduce their food miles by supporting small businesses.
Ultimately, she hopes to change her grocery habits so she doesn’t shop on autopilot.
Top tips
- Become more conscious and start small.
- Meal plan and bulk cook.
- Focus on natural foods.
- If you don’t have room for a big garden, grow lettuce, potatoes, and broccoli in pots or bags of topsoil. Fresh-produce companies also deliver seasonal fruit and vegetables (Misfit Gardens and Wonky Box are just two).
- If you don’t have space for a compost bin and don’t have the council-run compost collection, check to see if a local compost collective will pick up your food scraps. Go to: sharewaste.org.nz
Reduce food waste
- Create an “eat me first” shelf in your fridge and pantry to keep track of your food that may be dating.
- Share excess food with friends or food rescue organisations.
- Use excess food to feed pets or chickens.
- Compost only unavoidable food waste (eg eggshells, banana skins.) Go to: lovefoodhatewaste.co.nz
Carly Gibbs is a weekend magazine writer for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post and has been a journalist for two decades. She is a former news and feature writer, for which she’s been both an award finalist and winner.