New Zealand food provenance – paddock to plate

New Zealand starts to tell its provenance story

Every year millions of people flock to the cultural meccas of France and Italy and an inevitable part of that visit includes sampling iconic dishes in the place they originated from.

Both those European food magnets have a couple of advantages over New Zealand when it comes to attracting tourists with their food – they have large domestic populations that put a discerning, relatively wealthy market within their own borders, and they have had 2,000 years of history to refine and define their respective dishes.

Despite being a recent arrival to the world’s pantry, New Zealand food producers are beginning to define their own distinct style and story, to the point food and beverage exports now account for 60 percent of this country’s overseas earnings, and are poised to grow further and faster as overseas consumers seek out the quality and taste that backs New Zealand’s food provenance story.

Kiwi producers have had to work doubly hard to make their mark, pushing product from the bottom of the world to reach the larger markets that their European counterparts can take for granted in their own backyard.

And while European producers have had many generations to define their food “stories”, New Zealand producers have only honed theirs in the past decade or so.

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