pork
Every winner at the 2026 Bacon and Ham Awards was born and raised in New Zealand. A few are free range, the best welfare you can confirm. But free range tells you how the pig lived, not what it ate, and almost no label answers the feed question. The winners worth buying, and two we left off.
pork
What got me was the short ingredients list and the words "nitrate free" — then I learned most bacon sold here is imported. So I went looking for Woody, and found a rescue dog, a farm that nearly failed, and a chain of people two ranges away who actually raise the pig.
pork
Sixty percent of pork in New Zealand is imported. Over eighty percent of bacon and ham. So who's growing the rest? The answer is fifty-eight farms — fewer than the country has Pak'nSave stores. Here's who they are, who makes the best bacon and ham from their pork, and where to buy it.
