About
This site started with a strawberry.
An organic one, grown by a small producer in Te Horo, eaten at Christmas. It was the best piece of fruit I'd had in years. That led to a question I couldn't shake: why does food grown this way taste so different? Where does it actually come from? And why is it so hard to find?
That question is still unfolding. Organic Food Together is what I built to chase it.
How it started
It didn't begin as a food site. It began as a series of small irritations.
The smell of tap water at certain times of year. The government mandating folic acid in all bread with almost no public debate. The discovery that if you want bread without additives, fortification, or synthetic inputs, your options in Auckland narrow down to GoodFor in Grey Lynn and Daily Bread — and even those are inconsistent.
So I started making sourdough. Organic flour, filtered water, Celtic salt, a starter. Once I was doing that, I needed organic flour. Once I was sourcing organic flour, I started thinking about glyphosate. Once I started thinking about glyphosate, everything else followed.
At a certain point I stopped trying to optimise my way through it and just went back to basics — and started writing down what I found.
The longer version of how it started is here.
What this is
Organic Food Together is an independent site about real food in New Zealand.
Two things: articles investigating how the food system actually works, and a growing directory of places where you can find better food.
The editorial angle is curiosity, not advocacy. I'm not here to sell a lifestyle or push a particular diet. The goal is to understand a system — and share what comes up.
Three months in, some of what's come up: the fragility of NZ's food processing capacity, the hidden ownership behind familiar brands, the gap between what the organic label promises and what it delivers, and a quiet network of farmers, collectives, and small producers trying to build something better.
What this isn't
Not a brand. Not affiliated with any certifier, retailer, or food company. Nothing here is sponsored or paid placement.
The Places listings exist because they're useful, not because anyone asked to be included. If a place closes or the information is wrong, I want to know.
Why New Zealand specifically
Because the food system here has a particular character worth understanding.
New Zealand presents itself as clean, green, and natural. Some of that is real. Some is marketing. The gap between the two is where most of the interesting questions live.
The export focus means a lot of what gets produced here doesn't stay here. Processing infrastructure that used to exist is mostly gone. The organic sector is growing fast but the domestic supply chain hasn't kept up. These aren't abstract concerns — they show up in your shopping basket.
Following along
New articles go out regularly. The Places directory is expanding over time.
If you want to follow the project, the best way is to subscribe. No noise — just new pieces when they're published.
Subscribe
This is an evolving project. Some sections are still being built. If something is wrong, missing, or worth adding, get in touch.
