Rabobank Best of The Country - September 4, 2021

This week on the Best of The Country, Jamie Mackay caught up with Rabobank's Head of Sustainability Business Development Blake Holgate, to talk about changes in consumer habits and why ugly fruit and vegetables need love too.

This week's top interviews were:

Mike Petersen:

The Hawkes Bay farmer and former New Zealand Trade Envoy and Chairman of Beef + Lamb NZ talked about life on the farm in lockdown and about some of the real challenges facing the New Zealand export supply chain.

Dr. Jacqueline Rowarth:

One of New Zealand's leading farming academics said if we think the price of food (2.8 per cent pa) is getting out of hand in New Zealand, then we "ain't seen nothing yet" with the FAO's global food price index running at 31 per cent for the past 12 months.

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Jim Hopkins:

The rural raconteur was frothing at the mouth about the vaccine rollout and the Covid voiceover woman.

Blake Holgate:

Rabobank's Head of Sustainability Business Development commented on the ever-increasing price of food for New Zealand households and the rapid changes in consumer habits since 2019.

Simon Bridges:

In a Covid-delayed interview from mid-August we caught up with the former National Party leader to talk about his enlightening and entertaining new book - National Identity: Confessions of an Outsider. While he said it was "not a political memoir", we asked if it was the new launching pad for his next tilt at the Prime Minister's job.

Listen below: