Recent Blog Posts (RSS)
Hard News: Ready for the Weekend 9:58AM on 19 Mar 10
Up Front: This is a Photograph of Me 12:11PM on 18 Mar 10
Field Theory: The second test and the first test 11:33AM on 18 Mar 10
Southerly: This Week in Parliament 12:48AM on 16 Mar 10
OnPoint: Property Investment Federation: Just STFU 2:30AM on 12 Mar 10
View all posts on Public Address
Ads by Scoop
Public Address Cafe (RSS)
System > Public Address Cafe >
Public Address
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1654
Hard News: Food Show 08
There was no competition for the most unusual new product at The Food Show this year: it's the paua pickle. It had never occurred to me that such a condiment might exist, but the products launched by Taranaki-based Toku Foods are apparently based on Katu family recipes that date back to the arrival of spices and vinegar with the European settlers of the early 1800s.
Russell Brown
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 9057
Moderator
Just getting this over to System, seeing as it's taken so long to get posted. Have a happy weekend, folks. And eat well.
Deborah
From: Adelaide
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 815
Those Yarrows are good peoples. I suppose a large part of their philanthropy is possible because they are still a family owned business, but even so, it's impressive.
Che Tibby
From: the back of an envelope
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1523
Not here it wasn't: Starbucks has never been cool in New Zealand... Its competition isn't Mojo, it's McDonald's.
it's funny 'cause it's true.
Russell Brown
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 9057
Moderator
Those Yarrows are good peoples. I suppose a large part of their philanthropy is possible because they are still a family owned business, but even so, it's impressive.
Yes, and their stand had a really nice vibe -- younger family members on the job and all. I had toast this morning from the soy and linseed loaf they gave me, and it was really nice. Good packaging design too.
Stephen Judd
From: Wellington
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 2033
Starbuck in NZ is run as a franchise by Restaurant Brands. It accounts for about 10% of their revenue but almost none of their profit (those high profile locations don't come cheap).
Judging by the performance of RBD generally, and how they've hung on while Pizza Hut bleeds out, they won't close Starbucks whether it makes sense or not.
Nathan Wallace
From: Wellington
Since: Mar 2007
Posts: 1
I hope that cherry extract is working for you Russell, as you seem to have a real taste for the (yummy) gout causing foods...
Jeremy Eade
From: auckland
Since: Mar 2008
Posts: 467
chillis. ...don't take chillis on, they always win.
Tom Semmens
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1094
Coffee snobbery, slightly sillier but four times more tedious than wine snobbery (at least wine gets you drunk) but neither are anywhere near as bad as olive oil snobbery.Its oil. From olives. I get it.
Down with imported foreign muck like wine, coffee and olive oil! Give me Anglo-Saxon beer, tea and butter or give me death!
Richard Llewellyn
From: Mt Albert
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 358
For anyone else planning to go to the Food Show, I'd like to shamelessly spruik Olivado's avocado oil
Its fine oil, and say hi to Pip if you go along for a tasting.
Idiot Savant
From: Palmerston North
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1210
Freedom farms sells things other than bacon? I wonder if any of it is available in Palmerston North...
And the demise of Anglo-Saxon food is IMHO one of the great positive things to have happened in NZ during my lifetime. You can take your fatty baked chops and boiled cabbage with mushed potato and stick them somewhere unpleasant. Like England.
Robyn Gallagher
From: Wellington
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1309
And eat well.
Today I have been mostly eating chicken liver mousse on crackers.
James Green
From: Dunedin
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 579
Not here it wasn't: Starbucks has never been cool in New Zealand... Its competition isn't Mojo, it's McDonald's.
And in the market Maccas are whomping them. Better product for cheaper.
http://shareinvestornz.blogspot.com/2008/07/starbucks-new-zealand-cup-doesnt.html
Tom
From: Melbourne
Since: May 2007
Posts: 2
Even if Lygon st Melbourne is a bit of a tourist strip these days, it was always an affront to see a Star Bucks there.
It won't be missed by me atleast.
Jo S
From: The crunchy lawn
Since: May 2007
Posts: 62
The only long black I've ever actually _thrown out_ was from starbucks.
I was desperate for a coffee and everything else nearby was closed.
Not that desperate though
Eddie Clark
From: Wellington
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 259
Coffee snobbery, slightly sillier but four times more tedious than wine snobbery
Oh no, Tom, coffee snobbery is quite rational. After a steady diet of Starbucks being some of the BEST coffee one can find, one of the things I'm most looking forward to back in NZ is the coffee. Coffee in Canada is truly, truly terrible. I'm told Vancouver is a bit better, but still too many Starbucks.
Tom Semmens
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1094
Lighten up I/S! i'ts Friday and the bars and bright lights of Palmerston North lay at your feet... oh wait...
And I still think the mighty Lamington is the Japanese rock garden of baking when done properly and in its proper cultural context.
Martin Roberts
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 36
I also had a chat to the Freedom Farms people, who supply my local butcher with free-range pork.
Your local butcher is probably closer to me than any of the New Worlds listed on the Freedom Farms website. Would you care, please, to share their location?
Sam F
From: Morningside, Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1187
Starbucks in NZ is run as a franchise by Restaurant Brands. It accounts for about 10% of their revenue but almost none of their profit (those high profile locations don't come cheap).
Indeed they wouldn't. Particularly not the Starbucks on Parnell Road, sandwiched between about four spectacularly good cafes. Who they think they're fooling there, I have no idea... or maybe I do, since we went for brunch in Parnell recently with two complete coffee greenhorns, and had to actively persuade them not to choose the Starbucks.
We succeeded, went to Dunk next door, and our guests weren't sorry; but you have to wonder how many other suckers blithely wander in under that familiar logo, with no idea what they're missing a few strides away.
And it's not even that cheap, for goodness' sake.
Paul Litterick
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 897
¡Scorchio! A Fast Show reference from Ms Gallagher.
Mr Brown, I could not help but notice, while enjoying your excellent hospitality, that you had a bottle of Home Brand olive oil; and verily I was impressed that the Brown family put common sense before oil snobbery. I stopped buying Italian Extra Virgin when I found the Home Brand to be just as good in cooking.
Still, I think these local oils to be better for dribbling over vegetables. And it is nice to see (in b4 Jake) that we are pressing above our weight on a global stage.
Someone from Restaurant Brands was on NatRad saying that their franchise model meant they would not be forced to do what the Australian Starbucks had done. Myself, I think they do a good job in providing somewhere for the tourists to enjoy coffee laced with strange fruit, thereby leaving space free in the good places for us boho types.
Russell Brown
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 9057
Moderator
Your local butcher is probably closer to me than any of the New Worlds listed on the Freedom Farms website. Would you care, please, to share their location?
That would be here.
There's a lot more than pork, too.
Rob Hosking
From: South Roseneath
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 704
And the demise of Anglo-Saxon food is IMHO one of the great positive things to have happened in NZ during my lifetime.
Hang on. Done right its pretty damn good.
Despite a one - sometimes two - home made curries a week habit I still reckon the closest to ideal meal is an entree of bluff oysters, follwoed by roast lamb, baked spud and kumara with steamed veges; and dessert of blackberry crumble.
Accompanied by a Barrossa Valley red.
Jim Cathcart
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 65
What's the real reaon behind the hatred of Starbucks? I suggest that its democratization of coffee opened access to gourmet coffee for the rabble, not the shitty coffee itself. As if the boycotters of SB really care about exposing another evil brand. What it's really about is old-fashioned coffee snobbism.
Che Tibby
From: the back of an envelope
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1523
Ivanja Dabrowska makes a damn good lamington.
as for oil, for cooking, use anything. for dipping bread in? it has to smell like banana and taste like freshly cut grass, imho.
mmmm.... lawn clippings.
Che Tibby
From: the back of an envelope
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1523
opened access to gourmet coffee for the rabble
jim, all due respect man, but those few words are wrong on so many levels i'm not sure where to start.
Russell Brown
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 9057
Moderator
Mr Brown, I could not help but notice, while enjoying your excellent hospitality, that you had a bottle of Home Brand olive oil; and verily I was impressed that the Brown family put common sense before oil snobbery. I stopped buying Italian Extra Virgin when I found the Home Brand to be just as good in cooking.
I picked Home Brand when the other everyday brands were out of stock at Woolworths one day, pretty much on the colour of the oil in the bottle.
And, as you say, it's not bad! It's Spanish extra virgin.
Jono Baddiley
From: Wellytron
Since: Mar 2008
Posts: 9
It's funny cos it's true
My wife (a woman in her own right, obviously) felt very vindicated when the starbucks that opened next to the fuel coffee cart on the terrace in welly shut down several months later.
Wellington may miss many things, but one thing it doesn't have a lack of is coffee snobs
Tom Semmens
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1094
I digress into seriousness for a moment, I also try not to buy factory farmed pork. Compared to the free range ones we have they are nothing when it comes to flavour, and pigs are not meant to be kept in little cages. I love watching over the fence as our happy and friendly pigs go about their tasty business.
I also no longer buy chicken that has not been been free-range farmed - it seems to have shot up in fat content in recent years and now its all fat. Might as well eat a duck.
Tom Semmens
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1094
Crickey Che, S&M and a Lamington! What higher homage to our English heritage could you pay?
Robyn Gallagher
From: Wellington
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1309
When Starbucks launched in Australia and New Zealand, glaringly absent from their basic coffee menu were the Australasian cafe staples: the long black and flat white.
Eventually they relented and added them. But why weren't they there from the start? Did they not research the market? Did they assume that antipodean cafe dwellers just needed to be introduced to the pleasures of a thin, frothy Starbucks latte?
No wonder they're having trouble down under.
¡Scorchio! A Fast Show reference from Ms Gallagher.
Yay! Someone noticed!
giovanni tiso
From: Wellington
Since: Jun 2007
Posts: 4361
What's the real reaon behind the hatred of Starbucks? ... What it's really about is old-fashioned coffee snobbism.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, though, right? I mean, so long as you're bothering to have a coffee, it ought to be good coffee. (the unimpeachable logic of the Lavazza slogan in the old country: Il caffè è un piacere / Se non è buono, che piacere è?)
But really, what's there to like about Starbucks? We are blessed with excellent local cafès and eateries; why choose to patronise a foreign-owned chain which is not good at making the only thing it ought to make well? I wouldn't call that hatred myself.
Besides, if it fails here will shall be spared the sinister phase two of the operation.
Please login to post a reply.