Hard News: My Food Bag: is it any good?
163 Responses
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Russell Brown, in reply to
dishes that require expensive imported ingredients (panko breadcrumbs grrr)
They do cook up in a way that ordinary breadcrumbs don't, especially in deep-frying situations, but they are a bit more expensive. Otoh, they're cheaper than the mostly horrible crumb-coatings that people buy in supermarkets. I tend to stick to bags of ordinary breadcrumbs that seem to last forever.
but the simple act of taking some of your “poor time” and going out and actually handling the food, knowing what is in season, and going through the simple act of cooking it at home seems to deeply unsexy.
Easy to say for we freelance journalists, less so for those poor buggers who have to work proper jobs and may not get home till 7pm and want to spend some time with their kids.
This requires time and intelligence and energy, but the physical and intellectual effort of shopping for ingredients (or hey growing them yourself) seems to pass you dumbos by.
That's not exactly a way to win people over to your point of view. For what it's worth, I go to markets most Saturdays (La Cigale) and Sundays (Avondale). I love it. But not everyone does, or can, do that. That doesn't make them morally or intellectually defective.
$179? For that amount of food? Let’s have a cook off and I’ll cook enough food to a much larger group for longer – including using up the leftovers.
This is such a thin point. Yes, you could make 25 servings for less than $7 each -- we all could -- but it would be more difficult if you committed to using ingredients of similar quality (free-range meats, etc) and making similar meals. This isn't competing against budget meal strategies, but with what its target market might otherwise buy at Victoria Park New World.
Leftovers do not feature in these recipes -- but that's hardly unique to these particular recipes. I love leftovers, both next-day and frozen. I think My Food Bag will have to become more flexible if it's to be sustainable. But there's nothing immoral or terrible about using a service that undertakes to shop well on your behalf.
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BenWilson, in reply to
It's actually quite nutritious, you know. Mash it, boil it, roast it, put it in a stew, put it in a sandwich, serve it on toast.
I bought a can to celebrate the first piece of software going live. That shit was narrsty.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Did we all go to the same Lotusphere conference? I got to hear Sir Tim Berners-Lee speak about open and free internet around the same time as SOPA and that’s the story I came away with from the conference.
Wow, you got a much more interesting Lotusphere than me. But this was, like, the late 90s.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
I bought a can to celebrate the first piece of software going live. That shit was narrsty.
It's surprisingly good in a Sichuan- or Chongqing-style hotpot, especially in a super-spicy broth. As is frozen tofu, though with that you've got to be careful. When you freeze tofu it turns into a kind of sponge. When you pick a piece of it out of a hotpot, you have to squeeze it out, lest you also get a mouthful of 100 degree hotpot broth.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
That said, with #myfoodbag what Deborah and her team did was execute an online social media marketing campaign using inducements in the form of food. It was an advertising campaign and I am sure Pead PR was paid – so on that basis at least it counts as advertising.
It’s really standard to get people with an audience to talk about your product by giving them one to try. Freeview, for example, gave out quite a few decoders to journalists. Sky gave MySky recorders to a group of media people, including radio hosts. They both cost twice as much as a week’s trial of My Food Bag, but there wasn’t the same fuss.
The less visible activity is the daily pitching by consumer PR companies to media and TV in particular. Before Campbell Live reinvented itself, there was a lazy period of obviously PR-driven stories as filler. There was a hierarchy, with Close Up at the top for sheer middle-market reach.
Then there’s the slightly bizarre “events” scene, in which the deliverable to clients is the number of (Auckland-style) celebrities you can get to attend your launch. I was once invited to the launch of a hand dryer at a harbour apartment. It was too silly to even consider going, but ironically, just the invite did its job, and I was mildly excited the first time I got to use a Dyson Airblade.
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Sacha, in reply to
you're meant to put your hands in it :)
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Lilith __, in reply to
As for leaving Twitter to sort out Twitter’s social niceities – isn’t that what we are in the process of doing?
What I meant and didn't express very well was that I think the Twitter community will sort it. And probably not by means of rigid rules, but by social censure and blocking of transgressors. Nobody likes spam dressed up as conversation, and I don't think Twitterers will put up with it.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
you’re meant to put your hands in it :)
Oh. That'll be why people were looking at me like that.
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Sacha, in reply to
People doing stuff for gifts probably doesn't need to be #hashtagged - but if you are in the business of organising/solicting twitter traffic and are being paid to do so then maybe this fact ought to be flagged as a matter of best practice.
That was my comment over at Dylan's blog - if it wasn't for everyone using the same hashtag, the backlash may not have happened the same way.
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Sacha, in reply to
#kindasortamaybeanaddforfastfrshandtasty
Wit goes a long way.
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Sacha, in reply to
and a student journo might find themselves hopelessly compromised by a couple of duck breasts
beautiful
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While I wouldn't put it as harshly as Josie, I find this pretty decadent too. While we get to debate Food Bags, more and more people are hitting the food bank... hah! I have it! They can ethical-wash the product by sending the unsold ones down to the city mission! It'll read great in the chatty "personal" newsletter tucked in the bag!
I get two weeks' dinners for two and more off that, including one and half dozen free range eggs. Seems hopelessly wasteful to me.
Personally, even if I did feel hopelessly rich, this seems to me to be in an unhappy middle spot between cooking and takeout. If someone does all the shopping AND tells me what to do with it, that doesn't leave me much fun. Like using cake mix is just assembly, not baking. I feel much more proud of surveying the fridge and the pantry and what's left of the garden and conjuring something up.
Re the ethics: I am happily untouched by this as I didn't see a single tweet. I obviously don't follow enough celebrities. And I suppose if you do, then you'll come to expect this kind of thing. Seems to me anyway that recipients who want to hold their head up should note that they were given the product.
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I think we should also note that in tweeting about your PR "gift" you are sending a clear signal that you are the kind of person who gets PR freebies, unlike the plebs, a good thing for most wannabe celebs I should think. So not much barrier to declaring that you got it free.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I think we should also note that in tweeting about your PR “gift” you are sending a clear signal that you are the kind of person who gets PR freebies, unlike the plebs, a good thing for most wannabe celebs I should think. So not much barrier to declaring that you got it free.
Yes. It's not like your celeb actually has ay interest in concealing that.
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Seems like a good idea for those it is pitched at
Me, I like to buy food, it is part of the pleasure of cooking and the further (or may be the lower) I can go on the food tree the better
Like catching your own whitebait and then sharing the resulting meal with friends
Or growing the salad and remembering to plant a succession so you can keep on doing that all summer -
Joe Wylie, in reply to
"Time poor" - what on earth is that?
People who don't have enough time to cook. "Time Starving" are people who don't even have enough time to eat. "Can't eat, tweeting", is "Time anorexic"
Heh.
How about "time bulimic" - human-free soylent. -
This whole thing has been weird. The "debate" about the reviews has been full of what really looks to me like jealousy, "people got free stuff and I didn't, that has to be wrong somehow" seems to be a theme. That people get free stuff all the time gets dismissed. As far as I'm concerned if you got a free food bag, congrats. Yes I'm a bit jealous but it won't stop me from being glad people got some cool free stuff.
Then there's the outrage that someone is marketing food when ... people are starving. Again I don't get it, where's the outrage at Vogels making a new meusli? What makes this different? Sure this is targetted at rich people (well sort of rich), does that make it somehow evil? I really just don't get the outrage. People are not starving because we have food to sell to each other in NZ. People are starving because they can't grow enough food on their own land, the solution has nothing to do with food bags and certainly does not belong in this thread.
Then there's the outrage at the fact that you could just go shopping yourself and cook the meals yourself and this is a waste of money. Which is all a bit bizarre really. If you enjoy shopping for ingredients and making a fantastic (or average) meals, good for you. If someone else chooses to go out to Merediths that doesn't hurt you, it's their choice. If someone chooses, for whatever reason to let someone else shop and plan a weeks meals for them it's their choice and their money, how on earth does it hurt you?
Like I said the whole reaction has just been weird. For me this enterprise has two really good features. The first is it will work for some people, who for whatever reason just don't have the inspiration that week to plan meals, I fit that category this week because I'm writing grants and by the time I get home my brain is mush, I can still follow a protocol though. It seems priced somewhere between going out to a restaurant and getting takeaways, which suits my budget. So some people will enjoy the food bag idea and that will a good thing for them.
The second good thing is more important. For some people this might just replace takeaways. Instead of spending $30 at McDs they'll spend $30 on a food bag meal. A meal which is a hell of lot healthier. And a meal that might teach them how to cook, it might teach them that it really isn't that hard. That has to be good.
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Bart, your definition of “outrage” seems somewhat different to mine.
Certainly, I am wearing my black hat this morning.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
The “debate” about the reviews has been full of what really looks to me like jealousy, “people got free stuff and I didn’t, that has to be wrong somehow” seems to be a theme. That people get free stuff all the time gets dismissed.
Nah, for me ,this debate has been that myfoodbag has got to the correct demograph discussing the pros and cons of this concept and it seems it has been established that the price is about right (for those who can afford it, which we know by RB is this readership). It has also pulled in those readers ,like me, who don't do publicity but might support such a thing should I feel inclined, although personally I enjoy the cook experience and the "market to kitchen" exercise in order to appreciate that I can have good food.
So.... the marketing strategy is working and that's what it is. It is what it is. A PR campaign? A new product on the market? Ads without the TV and everyone getting involved with the research. That, this, that, or the other tags should, could, or would, be better seems irrelevant . Because some may dislike the product idea seems more to me like negative reviews ,not so much, jealousy .
To be honest, I wouldn't be interested , but I know I have the ability to shop wisely and cook healthy and others may/not be interested to know or learn so there will be someone willing to support this new business and I figure with a few tweek/ts this new business could flourish . I think households with nannys could see this as a positive. I wonder how many nannys got the bags ;) -
I prefer the sort of marketing campaign that Tonzu Tofu have done. They have pledged to pay their workers a living wage and as a consequence have got some very favourable coverage in the media and online. I already buy the products but will do so more regularly now.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
+100
In fact If the Living Wage people have a window sticker for businesses adopting this movement I would tend to use them rather than those which would rather pay less than the minimum wage if they could.
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JacksonP, in reply to
In fact If the Living Wage people have a window sticker for businesses
This seems worthy of a movement.
First question, can we come up with a decent way of calculating a genuine 'living wage'? Because this government has no idea what that means. In fact, they seem to believe you can withhold wages due to bureaucratic incompetence without consequences.
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Damian, good to see your success with the duck! Cheers, Theresa
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Ross Mason, in reply to
you're meant to put your hands in it :)
Did you find it is at the wrong angle too huh?
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
First question, can we come up with a decent way of calculating a genuine 'living wage'?
There was some earnest discussion in the Chch Press a few months back about reversing the decay of New Brighton and environs. The one idea that seemed to spark enthusiasm was to somehow have the area go 'upmarket'. If a more moneyed class of gentlefolk could be persuaded to take up residence then the place would become 'vibrant', with the kind of cafes and watering holes that supposedly flourish across the estuary at Sumner.
It all seemed very well-meant, but nowhere was there any suggestion that the current residents might patronise an emerging cafe culture if only they were paid enough to eat out occasionally. Nor did anyone address the question of where they'd live once the makeover class had usurped their living space.
Some living wage info here. The meaty stuff is in the downloadable PDFs.
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