Eating Our Way Into New Export Markets

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30411, 9 April 1964, Page 16

Eating Our Way Into New Export Markets

An export market for prepared foods will not be developed until New Zealanders regard eating as “one of the more refined pleasures,” according to Dr. W. B. Sutch, the Secretary of Industries and Commerce.

As soon as New Zealanders export the recipe with the food, as other people do, they will not only export more but will process imports to a more complex stage, he argues.

“We shall not be able to j understand what will sell on the European market, for example (and many processed foods are entering mar-1 kets that are barred to pro-| ducts in their raw form), until we have cultivated more advanced eating tastes and habits of our own,” Dr. Sutch said. His opinions are contained in an address read last evening at the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Geographical Society. Dr. Sutch is in Australia. Excerpts from the address are as follows: Sophisticated One way in which we have begun to develop has been through the importation of people with more sophisticated tastes. The Dutch, and to a lesser extent other European people such as Greeks, Italians- and Jugoslavs, have become fully integrated and welcome members of our community, but they have fortunately retained their European tastes. As a result, we have an expanded market and the stimulation of demand for such products as salamis, liver and other sausage and pate. As a further result, we now have firms exporting this kind of product to Trinidad, New Guinea, American Samoa, Barbados, Singapore, Australia and the Pacific Islands. Chinese Meals Our Chinese community has also brought new foods to us, not only in their restaurant meals but in packaged food: chop suey and spring rolls, for example, which have started to challenge a small part of the market for such “prepared meals” as fish and chips. This could perhaps be

developed into an export trade.

Again it is well known that much of our wine industry lis dependent on families that had their origins abroad. Blue-vein Cheese There is no real justification for saying that the New Zelander would look no farther than his traditional dishes, because we have as yet made no serious extensive attempt to introduce many other dishes to him, apart from those that Europeans and others have brought here. Now we should be developing foods of our own. The use of skills in cooking and food technology will be the means. The development of bluevein cheese is an example of this. Blue-vein cheese is a product unique to New Zealand. I believe it is worthy of the best tables in Europe and elsewhere. Maori Dishes We have not explored sufficiently what foods there are in New Zealand. The Maoris liked to eat and eat well. A meal was an occasion for enjoyment, not an interlude for the taking on of fuel. I suspect that we are not only neglecting some of the foods that they found to be good, especially fish foods, but we are perhaps ignoring the possibility of finding some foods that even the Maoris overlooked.

We also tend to forget we are part of Polynesia. There should be opportunity in the north of the North Island for more inter-

est in Polynesian dishes and foods.

With the development of unusual recipes we might find a basis for further processed exports, for example based on imports from the Pacific Islands, that attract consumers by their originality, particularly at this time when there is a revival of interest in Europe in Polynesia. Fungi Foods As to the foods that even the Maoris might have overlooked, I would doubt whether we have explored adequately what fungi, for example, we have or could have in New Zealand as food, flavouring for food, or the base for sauces. If we were to develop our own tastes, adapting our food and our preparation of food to our resources and to our environment, this could develop into the translation of our home and restaurant recipes into export products. Catering Training There is no national school of catering in New Zealand. Formal instruction in catering should be established as soon as possible, and there are proposals to this end. There is clearly an unsatisfied need, even on present demand from the hotel and catering industry, for basic cooks. Hotels and restaurants must at present take what is offering—occasionally finding a good immigrant cook who has received formal training, but this is a matter of luck. There should also be instruction in something more than basic cooking; in the development of the master cook. This is the cook who can progress beyond the ordinary into the complex meal which requires additional skills and experience. It is difficult to think of more than a very small number of persons in New Zealand with these skills and experience. Lagging Again we are lagging seriously behind other developed countries and indeed many less-developed countries in this respect. There is a lack also in facilities for training the hotel manager, those in fact who manage any form of catering.

There is also room for training in waiting, serving, receiving and in all the other skills associated with the hotel and catering industry.

We shall attract more tourists and ourselves live a richer life if we promote the growth of catering skills, which must begin with extensive formal training.