Editorial: Awards eat away at my conscience

Richard Williams and Joanie Williams, owners of Origin Earth, picked up 12 medals for its cheeses.

News that local boutique dairy company Origin Earth picked up a raft of prizes for its cheeses only fuelled my guilt trip.

Half an hour before hearing of their haul I'd thrown back a fruit smoothie furnished with the holy trinity of blueberries, oranges and bananas.

It was, as usual, delicious.

Yet my enthusiasm was curbed when I read the back of the frozen blueberries bag. "Product of Canada".

Annoyed at the shopping faux pas, I checked the sticker on the oranges, which read: "Product of USA".

The banana was a forgone conclusion, but I looked anyway: "Product of the Philippines".

Someone more charitable than me would say it's fusion food. But I felt more like Adam in the original garden, indulging in illicit fruit.

Milk, from Palmerston North, was added to the smoothie. If I were living in that cold city it would make the proliferation of foreign fruit in our supermarkets a little less bothersome.

But I don't. I live atop the Heretaunga Plains, where good things grow, where the Fruit Bowl takes pride of place on the dining room table.

Churlish? Given there's plenty not on these shores munching apples with "Product of New Zealand" on them, then maybe.

Yet on the eve of what's shaping up to be our biggest pipfruit harvest, on the eve of another great vintage, it makes a mockery of the paddock-to-plate ethos.

Perhaps that's why Origin Earth's 12-medal haul is so noteworthy. As owner Richard Williams told me this morning, their milk is often in cafes "just hours from the cow".

How refreshing. It's leagues away away from my breakfast of exotic fruit.