300 Southland Apples Are About to Find Out Who They Are

Robyn Guyton has matched more than 90 Southland heritage apple varieties from books and the internet. More than 100 still have no name. A DNA test could fix that, and pledges close on 20 November.

Organics Is Where Craft Beer Was in 2011

For ten years the number of small breweries in New Zealand barely moved. Then it doubled in four. I think organic food is sitting in the flat bit right now, and the big players have started to notice.

The Best Way to Understand the Price of Organic Food? Try Growing a Cauliflower.

A grower's best customers were the ones who'd tried to grow a cauliflower themselves. New Zealand dug for victory in 1943, gave it up for the greengrocer, and is quietly digging again. A packet of seed costs about $4. The time is the real price.

Sandra Bullock Grew Up Sneaking Cheetos. Then She Bought an Organic Avocado Farm.

In the Bullock house, Oreos and Coca-Cola were off limits. Their German mother drank wheatgrass, made tofu sandwiches and baked tortes for every holiday. One daughter became a professional baker. The other bought a 91-acre ranch and converted its avocado groves to organic.

The Politicians Had Their Turn. Then the Growers Were Asked to Be Prime Minister.

Five MPs had their say in October. On the last Vote Organic webinar, OANZ handed the questions to a market gardener, a dairy farmer, a garden educator and a business owner. One wanted an organic prescription scheme. Another wanted no money spent on organics at all.

The Amish Farm Probably Isn't Organic. Bill Gates Still Thinks We Should Learn From It.

Bill Gates says AI could do almost all our work, and some of us may choose to live more like the Amish. Their farms are mostly conventional. Their thinking about technology is the useful part.

Are Vegetables Really Half as Nutritious as They Were in the 1960s?

A report claiming fruit and veg are half as nutritious as in the 1960s went around the world. The real picture is smaller, and the biggest cause doesn't care what label is on the bag. The reasons to eat organic hold up anyway.

The Franken-Cow Series, in Ten Strange Facts

Three posts, a lot of names and a lot of numbers. Here's the Franken-Cow series boiled down to the ten things that surprised us most, from a capsule that does nothing for the cow to the charity in London that wrote the rules.

Who Decided New Zealand's Cows Needed This?

When food giants meet New Zealand's meat and dairy processors, the talk isn't about the planet's temperature. It's about their own emissions targets. Follow those targets back and you reach a charity in London, a think tank in Washington and a billionaire's fund. You don't reach Parliament.

Who Owns the Bolus? Follow the Capsule to the Money

The first methane tool for New Zealand cattle is made by a company owned partly by former bank chief executives, a former stock exchange boss, a carbon credit broker and the taxpayer, twice. Here's who owns the bolus, and who stands to be paid if it works.

Nobody Is Building a Franken-Cow. Here's What They're Putting Inside One.

AgriZeroNZ just raised another $117 million. Its first product is a capsule of synthetic bromoform for finishing beef cattle. It does nothing for the animal, farmers say they don't want it, and its effect on the climate is too small to measure. So why is it coming?

The Month in Food: October 2026

Thirty-one pieces, and the month we turned the pack over. October ran on two things. Five MPs sat down with the organic sector, one at a time, and answered the same seven questions. And a run of pieces went looking for what is actually on the food, and what