Opinion
What a powerful display of consumer power this week. First Sanitarium announced it would be offering customers the choice between the old made-in-Australia peanut butter and the new made-in-China product, and then Foodstuffs announced it would be putting country of labelling stickers on its fruit, veggies, meat and
seafood.
We still won't know where our processed foods come from as the manufacturers say that's in the too-hard basket, but at least it's a start, and both moves come as a result of customer demand.
There appears to be a belief New Zealanders are only interested in price, not provenance, and I guess the choice offered by Sanitarium and Foodstuffs will be a good gauge of people's priorities. Although more and more, I'm thinking of developing my little one-eighth acre paradise into a fruit bowl for the family.
As one dear old soul said on my radio show the other night, why would you buy canned peaches from China when you can bottle your own? The floodgates opened and loads of fabulous women rang in to tell me how their shelves were stocked with beautiful summer fruit, picked by them, preserved by them and enjoyed by their families. Imagine the colours when they open their pantry doors! I was swept up in a wave of oestrogen and now I can't wait for summer so I, too, can prove my worth as a woman. I will grow my own tomatoes and rip out the decorative but useless palms and replace them with peasgood none- such apple trees and black boy peach trees, and tend and prune and preserve to my heart's content.
Apparently, peasgood apples are as big as dinner plates and you have to prop up the branches like an old-fashioned washing line to help it bear the weight of its fruit. Woman and fruit tree - working together to feed the family. Who needs the People's Republic of China when the People's Republic of Grey Lynn can be nurturing fruit and veg to feed my family through cold harsh winters?
