April 2026 testing found glyphosate in six of eight supermarket breads — highest in the wholegrain and seed-heavy loaves many of us choose for health. But the real story is what those everyday exposures may be doing to your gut bacteria.
New Zealand exports its premium food to the world and imports cheaper alternatives to fill the gap. Underneath that paradox sit several interconnected debates — the GE Technology Bill, glyphosate residues, imported food standards, and what organic certification can and can't protect.
When the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed in March, it didn't just disrupt oil. A third of the world's fertiliser trade moved through that channel. NZ farming is feeling it.
It started with one exceptional strawberry. Three months later: fragile processing capacity, hidden supply chains, and quiet resilience in NZ's food system.
There are now several places in New Zealand where you can learn how organic food actually works. Not just which label to choose, but the underlying practice — soil health, seed saving, what it takes to run a small market garden.
I started by turning over a butter packet. I ended up discovering a patchwork of farms, collectives, butcheries, and stores quietly trying to solve one of organic food's most stubborn problems — how do you get good food from a small farm to the people who actually want it?
For thirty years, Huckleberry Farms was the beating heart of organic food retail in Auckland. From a single Greenlane store in 1994 to twelve locations across the North Island, it built something the supermarket duopoly could never replicate. In June 2024, it was gone.
New Zealanders assume the frozen vegetables in the supermarket are still mostly local and trustworthy. But as local processing disappears, that choice is quietly being made for us.
Frozen vegetable processing is shrinking in New Zealand because the whole chain is under margin pressure at once. Growers are squeezed, processors are squeezed, households are squeezed, and supermarkets still hold enormous power. Imports do not solve that. They simply mask the damage.
McCain’s Hastings closure and Wattie’s frozen vegetable retreat put at risk local processing capacity tied to roughly 86,000 tonnes of vegetables a year, enough for all five daily vegetable servings for around 589,000 people.
A new study found ultra-processed foods rose from 8.7% of New Zealand’s food and beverage imports in 1990 to 21.8% in 2023. That is not just a diet story. It is a food-system story.
We will buy pills, powders, and “health” products, then say better food is too expensive. A friendly question: have we been sold the add-on while neglecting the foundation?
