KEY POINTS:
Grocery shopping has become wheat-hunting sessions for Ms Banu Kunalan, 35, an immigrant from Kerala, India.
Since January, the mother of two has been scouring Indian grocery shops on Sandringham, Dominion and Manukau Rds for wheat flour from India to make roti, which is the staple food for her family.
But she has given up, and said the task has gone from "very difficult" to "impossible" in the space of two months.
Against a backdrop of rising prices of basic foods like rice, corn and wheat - which has risen by 130 per cent since March last year - members of the Indian community in New Zealand, like Ms Kunalan, are facing an even more compelling problem; they can no longer get flour from their homeland.
Following the recent food crisis, India has imposed an export ban on the product.
"I keep going to shops hoping to find old stocks, but I think every single bag has been snapped up," she said. "The New Zealand made flour I use now is not the same, and my husband and children complain every day about the texture and taste."
Rajenthiran Thuraisingam, owner of Oum Pillaiyar Trader mini market on Sandringham Road, said many of his customers continue to request the Indian wheat flour and brands such as Parle-G, Pillsbury and Annanpurana, which he can no longer get.
"For Indians, tasting roti is like how Kiwis taste their wine ... you cannot say that they are all the same because they are not," he said.
"All we have in stock now is the local chapati flour, but I know my Indian customers buy them only because they have no other choice."
The absence of Indian wheat flour is also causing problems at some restaurants.
"Customers say the roti doesn't taste the same and I have to explain the reason is the different flour, and that it is not because of my skills," said Saravanas Restaurant chef Dhanapal Chinna Kannan.
However, restaurateur Youges Subramaniam, owner of Santhiya's South Indian and Malaysian Restaurant on Dominion Road, thinks the problem will be temporary - "until people get used to the taste".
A bigger problem was the spiralling cost of rice, which has doubled in Auckland in recent months.
