Kiwi woman tries to buy NZ-only food for a year

Rice, crackers, and bananas are everyday Kiwi staples found in most cupboards, but for Kate Hall, they’re off-limits — at least for the next three months.

Late last year, the Kiwi influencer known as Ethically Kate decided to commit to a 12-month diet that supported local food.

"I challenged myself for the year, from the 1st of January to the 31st of December, to only buy New Zealand-made groceries," she said.

The rules were simple – she could use what she already had in her cupboard.

"I wasn't about to throw things out. That would be wasteful," she says, and would directly contradict everything Hall teaches with her brand.

Another rule: When she was out for dinner or invited to a friend's house, she could eat whatever they cooked. Because 2024 was not about to be the year she lost friends.

“I didn't want to be the person that turned up and said, ‘I've got my bag of quinoa. Sorry, I can’t eat your rice'."

And the most important rule of all: It had to be made in New Zealand.

Looking for the New Zealand-made label should've been easy, but Hall soon realised that brands in this country are quick to capitalise on patriotism.

Take the tea section, for example — an area Hall frequented as a passionate tea drinker.

At a glance, "New Zealand" is found on most tea packages, but the wording differs.

Packed in New Zealand. Blended in New Zealand. Crafted - and even Founded - in New Zealand.

“Most of these ingredients I read, I know they're not grown here, so I feel like I'm cheating even though it's within my challenge," said Hall.

She discovered many products would work in the grey area to New Zealand-ify their products. So her “Made in New Zealand" challenge became a “Mostly Grown in New Zealand” challenge.

In New World Whangaparāoa, she now does the bulk of her buying in the produce section, which has large signs indicating where items were grown.

"I just want to eat the basics, so I go for vegetables and meat."

Nine months in, and she’s become in tune with the seasons. Winter’s staples are starting to be replaced by the warmth-loving veg of spring and summer.

"I've really come to accept different months and associate them with the foods.

"I want to know what grows in our land. What grows if we had to shut our borders and didn’t have food coming in?"

Her grandparents would be proud. This unique diet has resulted in a remarkably traditional Kiwi meat and three-vegetable diet. However, the bike-loving eco-warrior backs herself in the creative stakes.

"I don't think I'm as boring as my grandparents with meat and three veg."

Hall talked about the foods she misses as she simmered some wild venison to be served over a bowl of quinoa (she admits she is over serving everything with quinoa).

Rice is the big one. Rice was a mainstay of her diet as a celiac, but she has yet to find a grower in New Zealand.

Bananas are off the table until summer, and she was shocked to find none of the supermarket crackers are made here.

But for every product she couldn’t find, she found another one that a small Kiwi company is giving a go.

"I have found hundreds of new brands, hundreds and hundreds.

"We grow so much in New Zealand, and we should be proud of the producers who do that because it's so hard," she explained.

"We talk about that whole 'support small businesses', but when we shop, it goes out the window."

Hall wants people to make just one change in their daily shopping — one switch that will mean very little in the final total at the till but the world to one Kiwi creator.

With three and a half months to go and summer vegetables on the horizon, she is upbeat about how the challenge has gone.

She says she will continue to eat mostly New Zealand-made food while incorporating a few exotic items, such as coconut milk and soy sauce.

But her eyes are fixed on the New Year and a meal few of us would cherish.

"A bowl of white rice with a side of banana — that will be my meal on the first of January."