Today on the show we are talking about food as a whole and the concept of food design with Jane Armour-Raudon. What is food design exactly? What do we mean when we say something we eat is sustainable? How can food design invigorate our relationship with the food we put into our mouth?  Lets chat with Jane the Food Smith and find out ..read more

Welcome again to the Kiwi Foodcast. Today on the show we have Kevin Ngadisastra, one half of the duo behind the Popup that has been taking Wellington by storm, Townhouse Ramen. Kevin’s ramen journey began in 2016 with a trip to Japan. But he is actually a systems analyst by day and not a chef! How did Kevin’s love affair with ramen begin? Can you run a successful food business if you also work full time? How can YOU score a seat at one of his pop ups? Let’s chat to him and find out ..read more

Julie Gillingham was a dental hygienist when she fell in love with the keto lifestyle. After giving birth to two children, she loved how keto made her feel. The sleep was better, she had more energy and of course, the weight loss was a bonus. She did miss eating ice cream though. And pizza! "When my family was following keto strictly, we would have pizza once a week but could never find a pizza base that was both tasty and affordable." So she decided to try making them herself. Julie had hit on the right pain point because anyone doing keto knows that giving up bread is the hardest bit. Not be ..read more

Sachie came to New Zealand after graduating high school, mainly to speak English. What was she most surprised with on coming here? She says, "I was surprised with the size...not of the country but with the size of vegetables here. In Japan, a capsicum may be the size of an egg while here it's more like an apple!" Sachie's journey in entrepreneurship started rather serendipitously while she was working in hospitality sales. She went in one morning and learned of a colleague that had passed away from a heart attack at just 45. That same afternoon she heard of another friend that also passed away ..read more

Monisha's journey cooking and eating fresh, healthy food started long before she joined Instagram. In India, she worked as a naturopath, as an aerobic instructor and a yoga teacher.  Life changed when her family and she decided to move to New Zealand. They began their journey in Invercargill where Monisha was unable to resurrect her career in naturopathy and started working in a meat and freezing works. A seven-month stint at the local Pita Pit reminded her how much she loved being around fresh food and simple flavours. So, when they moved to Rotorua a few months later, Monisha continued ..read more

Ash Razmi was on a trip in the States when he tasted his first quality craft beef jerky and couldn’t get enough. After he came back home he was determined to replicate those flavours and used a home dehydrator to try making his own jerky. It took him hundreds of attempts to get the balance perfect and because beef jerky is not made the same day there was lots of recording involved to see what worked.  Most of the biltong and jerky available in NZ is made by large manufacturing brands and has a long list of artificial ingredients. Ash didn't want to create another tough, rubbery jerky that ..read more

When my mum and I moved to New Zealand, I was always the odd one out at school. Other kids brought sandwiches while mum always packed me some Indian leftovers. "What's that, butter chicken?", my Kiwi friends would ask while I waited near the microwave for my food to be heated. My eyes would roll inside my head. If only they knew the joys of a true Indian dish.  It took growing up, moving back to India and missing the oddly orange 'Kiwi' butter chicken, to realise that it wasn't anyone's fault. After all, butter chicken, tikka masala and naan were the only dishes they knew! How were us Kiw ..read more

Jayshri was born in New Zealand. However, she grew up eating primarily Gujarati food at home. For her mum, like many Indian mums, food was the primary love language. Jayshri didn't learn how to cook Indian food until she left home to study. She would try calling her mum to ask her how to cook something and would often be told to add 'a little bit of this and a little bit of that'.  It's a quandary many of us have faced. Not wanting her family secrets to be lost, Jayshri started noting the recipes down in a wee notebook when her parents sold the family dairy. However, when she told a few K ..read more

The FoodBowl is for food entrepreneurs what the Willy Wonka Chocolate factory was for kids. Supported by Callaghan Innovation and run by the Auckland chapter of the NZ Food Innovation Network, the FoodBowl is an open access facility whose core business is to increase the ­value of New Zealand's food sector by encouraging companies to develop and commercialise new products. We all know that developing a new product or process can be an exciting journey. But it's also exhausting. FoodBowl provides support and resource for companies and innovators not only with expert advice and connections ..read more

Adlena Wong grew up in Singapore. Her mix of Chinese, Indonesian and Malaysian heritage meant that she grew up eating a lot of sambal and dodo's (a sticky taffy like pudding) as well as having Tau Huay (soy bean pudding sweetened with ginger and vanilla) for breakfast every weekend at the local hawker stall with her grandmum.  At the end of 2020, Singapore hawker culture was added to UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. A whole generation of Singaporean bankers, lawyers, engineers and more have had their studies funded by their parents' hawker stal ..read more