Food lovers spoiled for choice

Former Kiwis league captain Richie Barnett is sold on the idea of the Nosh market in Glen Innes. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

Looking for Moreton Bay bugs?

Go to see Richie Barnett - Maori Television presenter and ex-league player, who is now working behind a counter as well as in front of a camera.

He likes his fish, so it took little persuading by his business partner, Danny Kinney, for Barnett to set up shop in Nosh, the new gourmet food store in Glen Innes.

"As a little fella my family used to trawl with nets. I used to stand in the middle and hold the stake while they boated around and stingrays and sharks swam round."

Back then he was petrified of fish. Now he sells them from the Union Fish Company area in Nosh.

The Glen Innes superstore is the first of three such foodie havens coming to Auckland: Fresh on Gillies Ave, Newmarket, and Farro Fresh in Remuera are due to open over the next couple of months. A smaller version - Taste - will open in New Lynn on Thursday.

The rising interest in fresh food is also reflected in a new monthly farmers' market which starts operating on Devonport ferry wharf tomorrow. This adds to the range of fresh produce available to shoppers from the established Otara, Avondale and Takapuna markets and other farmers' markets on the outskirts of Auckland or beyond, such as Albany and Matakana.

Niki Bezzant, the editor of the Healthy Food Guide, wonders whether there is enough of a market for the foodie superstores.

"My gut feeling is probably not. But I could be wrong. There is definitely a market for one good one. Look at the success of Moore Wilson in Wellington, and people have long lamented why there hasn't been one in Auckland."

She says there has been a rise in interest in gourmet food, and local and seasonal produce, which had taken it out of the preserve of small delicatessens to become more mainstream.

"I don't necessarily think it is health-driven, but health is one of the things. People want food that tastes good.

"Primarily, people eat for taste but they want the extra benefit of health more than they did before.

"So you've got health food which was once hippy-fringe stuff and is now part of an everyday meal.

"Things like beans and lentils were once health food but are now also gourmet. People can and do buy Le Puy lentils for $15 a box in the supermarket, which would have been laughable a few years ago because they were hippy food."

Janene Draper will open her store Farro Fresh Food in Remuera at the end of August.

She said Auckland was big enough and Farro Fresh was different enough to attract different clientele than Nosh.

"We are about value as well. People want to be able to cook for their family for under $20. The concept is you open a cookbook and you should be able to get everything in the recipe in one store, whether it be ostrich meat or citric acid."

Ms Bezzant says the increasing popularity of farmers' markets are another sign of the trend in foods.

"It is interesting that it is happening all at once, the opening of these stores and the growth of farmers' markets.

"You just need to look at the success of the Matakana farmers' garden to see that it is a big drawcard for people."

She says there are plans in Sydney to put farmers' markets in malls, because the supermarkets believe they are losing money to the markets.

"Maybe that's a sign of how powerful they are becoming."