'Our problem is not with food purchasing and supermarket pricing - it lies with the inability of far too many Kiwis to cook and use seasonal food wisely.' Photo / 123RF
A meal for all seasons
Once again, the prices at the supermarket are under fire. Your editorial quotes $3 for a single tomato and $6 for a feeble cucumber (NZ Herald, Aug 15).
Foodstuffs’ Chris Quinn says he’s acutely aware of how much the weekly shop is hitting consumers’ back pockets.
Did anyone in the food chain, apart from hard-working farmers and growers, take into consideration the seasonality of food?
Care enough to delve a little deeper and very quickly learn a fresh whole cauliflower or cabbage can be purchased now for around $2, and a whole pumpkin, brimming with the colour and nourishment needed, is around $3.
Even avocados, the price of which will probably incur a lot of bleating in a few months time, can be purchased at the bargain price of 5 for $5 or less right now.
Our problem is not with food purchasing and supermarket pricing - it lies with the inability of far too many Kiwis to cook and use seasonal food wisely.
Look no further than your own Canvas recipes where readers are invited to use fresh strawberries to garnish the shortcake. Strawberries in August? $12 a chip, imported from Australia.
Lauraine Jacobs, Remuera.
GST and healthy food
Thank you on behalf of all low- and middle-income earners on your editorial (Aug 15) regarding the ridiculous fresh food prices in a nation which has been proud of its abundance of fresh NZ-grown produce for decades.
Clearly, it is the duopoly of the two main grocery chains that has brought the country virtually to its knees when it comes to food pricing.
How did a previous government let it slip past, unable to take GST off fresh unprocessed produce? Bread, pasta and rice could be added to this GST exemption perhaps. Most other food is often dubiously high in carbohydrates, salt and unhealthy additional ingredients, so could be left at the current pricing level.
The Labour government was fully aware of the emerging nationwide hardship at the time. Yet nothing was done.
One should not hold one’s breath when it comes to government interference regarding food pricing rip-off prevention and keeping a struggling nation on its feet. History has shown very little government action in this field, although the pressure and power on consumers as well as producers has always lain in the hands of the two largest ultimate supermarket chains.
Collectively, we can only hope that the present National-led Government sees the food pricing greed for what it is and look into it more deeply, meanwhile eliminating GST on all core food items. Wouldn’t that be nice!
René Blezer, Taupō.
Carrot, not stick
I wonder what part of the world the editorial writer is living on? Tomatoes at $3 each, and $6 for cucumbers? Well, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s winter and these are summer vegetables.
Are they growing in your backyard right now? No, because it is too cold and they need to be grown in heated greenhouses or imported at this time of year, which of course makes them expensive.
If I was a grocery retailer I would be shrugging too. So instead of blaming the obesity epidemic on the cost of out-of-season vegetables, you could do what I and many others do. Carrots at 89c a kilo were a hot item at my local supermarket this morning.
Jenny McDowall, Hamilton.
Gene-edited food
Government ministers are saying that consumers will still have a right to choose what they eat after regulations change to allow GE outside the lab, with continued labelling of GM food in supermarkets.
But the Food Standards Authority (FSANZ) has just released proposals that most gene-edited products from New Breeding Techniques will be exempt from regulation. Labelling will be “out of scope”. In other words, there will be no labelling.
This will deny consumers a choice and create a long-term vulnerability in the integrity of the food system. The Government points out that the EU is changing its safety regulations of GE too but don’t mention that the EU is keeping traceability and labelling.
Surveys in multiple countries including New Zealand show that consumers consider gene-editing as a form of genetic modification and 80% want tracing and labelling.
If there is no traceability and labelling of gene-edited plants and animals how will patents be protected, how will farmers know what they are planting? How will New Zealand ensure it can meet the demand for GE-free products which is showing double-digit annual growth across our key export markets such as China, India and the USA.
Jon Carapiet, Sandringham.
Scam responsibility
So the scam victim was insistent that she was not a scam victim when questioned by ASB Bank staff who were instructed to transfer funds to an offshore bank account so that she could “release Covid funds” and insisted that the bank staff should not question her decision (Weekend Herald, Aug 10).
Does this mean in future, that a bank should not question the transfer of funds to an offshore bank account, but if the transfer is not legitimate, or the customer’s funds are lost to scammers, they are then liable for the customer’s error? It seems to me that the customer wants to have their cake and eat it as well.
Surely if they are the victim of a scam, and they have been warned by bank staff of this possibility, then the customer should bear the full responsibility for their inept actions?
Bruce Woodley, Birkenhead.
Power play
Steven Joyce tellingly reveals why the electricity market cannot succeed without draconian reform (Weekend Herald, Aug 10).
Don’t be tempted to think that this former Minister of Economic Development actually wants such reform. If so, his criticism of the Lake Onslow scheme proves otherwise.
Onslow would have provided to government the market power it currently lacks – to proactively reduce peak scarcity, suppress obscene pricing, encourage competition and economic development. Market rules (Greed is good!), not Onslow, are the root cause of suppressed generation investment.
Remember Meridian’s aluminium smelter deal? Another 500MW onstream would have been a gentailer crisis. This “deal” condemned consumers and commercial investors to decades of high-priced electricity.
While Mr Joyce and his fellow travellers constructively deny the root cause of the electricity pricing crisis and obfuscate the worth of measures that would have worked, they condone ongoing misery to consumers and actively suppress innovation.
Dr J P Moriarty, Paraparaumu.
Awkward Aukus
I was impressed with Maire Leadbeater’s letter, which has given all of us much food for thought (Weekend Herald, Aug 19).
The aspect that concerns me is that the public has not been kept informed. It seems that our policy towards China and Aukus is being conducted by stealth.
Now is the time for Winston Peters to stand up in Parliament and tell the public the extent of his various conversations with people in authority overseas. In other words what commitments has our Foreign Minister given to the Aukus members. Most important of all are we committed to treat China as our enemy should the Aukus members become engaged in hostilities with China.
Johann Nordberg, Paeroa.
The price of food is once again in the news, illustrated in a recent Herald editorial by reference to the price of cucumbers (in August). For context, the Reserve Bank inflation calculator shows that in the past 25 years, food prices have increased 95%. Over the same period wages have increased 137%, and housing costs have increased 392%. The reason families are struggling is clear, and it is not the price of food.
Christine Laws, Herne Bay.
Your editorial writer should stop bellyaching about the “crisis” in fruit and vegetable prices. Why on earth would they want to buy a fresh tomato in the middle of winter? They are tasteless as well as expensive and you can get a tin of whole tomatoes for $1.20 or less. This morning I bought two such cans at the supermarket, plus 250g of carrots for under 50c and several large onions for under $1. As for the much-maligned baked beans, they are a good source of protein and of iron, and children happily eat them.
Alexandra Barratt, Hamilton.
Isn’t the best way for the Government to bring down unemployment not to make 6000 of their own employees unemployed?
Kushlan Sugathapala, Epsom.
I have a very good idea for the Government to deal with irresponsible beneficiaries – Workhouses! They were highly successful in Victorian England and are the logical next step for this coalition. After that would be deportation but that won’t work in 2024.
Susan Grimsdell, Auckland Central.
I take issue with correspondents like Greg Cave who complain that the tax cuts won’t make any difference to his cost of living because his latest rates bill has increased. Surely he must realise that if he didn’t get the tax cut that he would still have to pay his rates, thus increasing his costs of living “crisis”. At least the tax cut helps and is much appreciated by most people I have spoken to.
Neville Andrews, Huapai.
At a stage of my life where remembering what I had for dinner the previous evening evades me, I find reciting the times tables I learned by rote near 60 years ago little or no problem. This includes 12×11 (the hard one). That method of teaching maths appears to have worked.
Kerry Wickman, Northland.
Comparisons are often odious, but the international media’s concentration on the number of Olympic gold medals won by each country is often out of perspective, especially concerning Australia. On a population basis NZ’s gold medal count is 270 times more than China, 65 more times than USA, 23 more times than Japan, and 5 times more than Australia. Enough said.
Hylton Le Grice, Remuera.
I am outraged that Steve Braunias would describe Wellington, a city I love, as a “one-horse town” (Weekend Herald, Aug 10). He may be right that we have just one horse. However, he completely overlooks the fact that we have many excellent donkeys.
Ian Fraser, Wellington.
The Yes Minister episode of a new and well-staffed hospital running smoothly, except for the absence of patients, is one model of efficiency. In NZ frontline clinical staff, who are at the bottom of the multi-layered management hierarchy, may not be as essential in hospitals as we once thought. There might also be less need for sterile surgical instruments.
Arthur Coverdale, Remuera.
How a resilient Kiwi village hopes to bounce back from a big drop in visitors.