beef
There is certified organic beef in New Zealand supermarkets. Most people walk past it, because the brand that sells it also sells five kinds of beef that aren't organic. Here's where to buy it and how to spot it.
food prices
A reader asked how much of the $10 he pays for a dozen eggs reaches the farmer and how much the supermarket clips. Nobody in the article was asked. Three economists explained record food prices, and every cause they named sat somewhere no New Zealander can reach.
chicken
Macro sells a certified organic whole chicken in Australia. In New Zealand the Macro chicken lines are free range only. The organic chicken at Woolworths NZ is there, but it isn't called Macro, and the company behind it may surprise you.
eggs
A green sign taped to the Woolworths egg shelf says some free-range flocks have moved indoors. It doesn't name a supplier, a brand, a date or an end. Europe caps this at 16 weeks and then the eggs become barn eggs. Organic wrote its own exception. New Zealand wrote nothing at all.
kiwifruit
The best organic kiwifruit in the world is easier to find in Sacramento than in Tauranga. New Zealand's organic sector just hit $1.18 billion, and most of it leaves the country. Five structural reasons the domestic organic market stalled while the rest of the western world moved on.
supermarkets
Macro looks like a single organic brand. It's actually an umbrella covering certified-organic, free-range, "wholefoods," and "no artificial" products — only some of which are organic. Here's how to read the difference at the shelf.
eggs
There's a five-character stamp on most NZ supermarket eggs. Here's the story behind the programme that puts it there, who runs it, and what it actually tells you.
New Zealand food system
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.
