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Kaitahi’s super green zing smoothie drops include indigenous ingredients such as locally grown pūhā (Photos: Facebook/Kaitahi)
Kaitahi’s super green zing smoothie drops include indigenous ingredients such as locally grown pūhā (Photos: Facebook/Kaitahi)

KaiAugust 11, 2018

The shake-and-drink smoothie drops revitalising indigenous foods

Kaitahi’s super green zing smoothie drops include indigenous ingredients such as locally grown pūhā (Photos: Facebook/Kaitahi)
Kaitahi’s super green zing smoothie drops include indigenous ingredients such as locally grown pūhā (Photos: Facebook/Kaitahi)

No blender required, says south Taranaki iwi-owned enterprise Kaitahi, whose frozen smoothie drops using Māori ingredients have tapped into the convenient ‘superfoods’ market. Jihee Junn talks to business development manager Leonie Matoe about how Kaitahi’s innovative drops are reviving the use (and growth) of indigenous ingredients.

Fossil fuels have long powered Taranaki’s economic engine. But when the government announced earlier this year that it was going to stop offshore oil and gas exploration in New Zealand, the region’s mayor described it as “a kick in the guts”.

While the announcement felt abrupt, it wasn’t entirely without warning. Shell said it was pulling out of New Zealand earlier this year, while Tapuae Roa – a blueprint for Taranaki’s future economy unveiled almost a year ago – touts sectors like clean energy, food and the Māori economy as key drivers for the region’s growth

It’s a path that Kaitahi – a south Taranaki-based smoothie company – has already well and truly embraced. A self-described “social-ecological enterprise”, Kaitahi’s goals as an iwi-owned agency (Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi) stretches beyond just profit, promoting the use of Māori ‘superfoods’, the employment of locals from the south Taranaki community, and the revitalisation of indigenous, plant-based ingredients in the region.

Not to mention it’s got an award-winning innovation to back it up. 

Smoothie blends are snap frozen into droplets to be shaken into life (Photo: kaitahi.com)

“You just grab one cup of the drops and shake it together with a liquid mixer. There’s no need for a blender because of the droplet format. They just dissolve into the liquid when you shake it together,” says Leonie Matoe, Kaitahi’s business development manager.

“[To make the drops], we source all the ingredients, some of which we harvest by hand and process ourselves, and feed them into a factory that blends them together. That blend then goes through a droplet system that drops our blend onto a conveyor belt that moves instantly into a blast freezer. So our mix is frozen and packed into pouches. They stay frozen and are sold frozen so you don’t lose any nutrition.”

The ingredients Kaitahi uses for its smoothie blends includes all the usual suspects: berries, bananas, pineapples and oranges, to name a few. But Kaitahi also distinguishes itself by using a range of indigenous plant foods and ingredients, like kūmara (one of the most concentrated sources of carbs of any vegetable), pūhā (a staple green vegetable in Māori cuisine), kawakawa (an aromatic plant with medicinal qualities), and rewarewa honey (from the native New Zealand honeysuckle tree, whose nectar was collected by traditional Māori as a natural sweetener).

“It was my frustration with the food industry and the public health world… that forced me to jump to the other side,” says Leonie Matoe, left (Photo: Supplied)

While officially launching in May, the Kaitahi concept has been two years in the making, spurred by concern among local iwi over the lack of sustainable enterprises, Matoe says. “Here in south Taranaki, we’re dominated by industries like dairy farming and oil and gas, so the idea was to create something that used our indigenous superfoods and native plants.”

“Early market research formed the idea [for a smoothie formulation]. But really, we just ended up making some really good friends along the product development journey who knew people, who knew other people, who knew this factory with the technology. It all just moved from there.”

Matoe, who comes from a nutrition background, says Kaitahi was also informed by her experiences working in the public health sector promoting health and wellbeing, primarily among Māori communities. “It was my frustration with the food industry and the public health world, and the frustration around good, healthy food not being easily accessible, that forced me to jump to the other side.”

As an indigenous food enterprise, there are other layers of complexity and accountability Kaitahi has to actively consider, Matoe adds. “We’re supported by our iwi agency, Kii Tahi Ltd, which means we’re owned by the iwi and supported by our 4000-plus iwi stakeholders. That means employing local people in south Taranaki, employing our iwi people if they have the skill, and revitalising local indigenous foods with a focus on availability, accessibility, as well as [keeping an eye on] those limits.”

Revitalising the south Taranaki region by planting native plant species (Photo: kaitahi.com)

“We know we can’t just go off and make tons of the stuff. We have to think carefully and make sure these plants are sustained and can sustain us. We’re currently trialling the growth of a native pūha species which once grew prolifically in our region along the coastline, but we don’t see that particular species as much [any more]. We want to use that particular pūha species in our product going forward. So by design, our business actively supports the revitalisation of native plant foods. And of course, we have to make money from it too.”

From the success of sibling chefs Karena and Kasey Bird to fast-casual food truck Pūha & Pākehā, the renaissance of Māori-inspired cuisine has been spearheaded by the merging of traditional ingredients with contemporary methods. Natural, unadulterated, nutrient-dense foods with cultural and historical mana behind them are in – overly processed, heavily manufactured foods are out.

“Two years ago when I started working on this project, we did a little validation exercise where we asked specific questions around traditional foods and native plant foods, and people were neither here nor there about it,” Matoe recalls. “But this time around… it’s all just been really positive. I think it’s a reflection of timing and openness to take on new food ideas. It’s interesting to me how influential trends are.”

Kaitahi smoothies are coming to an (Auckland) cafe near you (Photo: Supplied)

Since showcasing their products at food shows in both Auckland and Wellington, Kaitahi’s biggest problem is trying to keep up with demand, receiving at least one inquiry a day asking where customers can purchase the product. “It kind of hurts me a little to hold them off, but it’s just the nature of startup companies and the food business. But I have full faith we’re going to get there,” she says, before adding that the company has just started a relationship with Auckland cafe and restaurant supplier The Produce Company, and is currently in discussions with Wellington food emporium Moore Wilson’s.

“The whole idea of being at these food shows is to introduce us to people who can get us stocked into stores. So we’re working on that. [We also have] second- and third-generation products in mind that move into freeze-dried snacks and powders. But for now, we’ll stick with as minimal processing as possible.”


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Punjabi lassi is strong, tangy and sort of farmy (Photo: Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images)
Punjabi lassi is strong, tangy and sort of farmy (Photo: Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images)

KaiAugust 10, 2018

Punjab is basically the Taranaki of India 

Punjabi lassi is strong, tangy and sort of farmy (Photo: Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images)
Punjabi lassi is strong, tangy and sort of farmy (Photo: Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images)

Two Kiwi dairy devotees feel right at home in the northern Indian state that’s mad for milk products.

Ardent carnivores may struggle in Amritsar, the second biggest city in Punjab state, India. In the bright sandstone main square, signs at the doors of Maccas and Subway declare them strictly vegetarian eateries, and most restaurant menus are meat-free. We didn’t notice any butcher’s shops in this place of pilgrimage for Sikhs, but the streets are lined with lassi vendors and ice cream spruikers, purveyors of pulse-based curries made silky with cream, plush breads glistening with butter, and paneer skewers deliciously charred in tandoors. Docile cows roam freely — technically state-owned bovines, they’re offered the first chapati of the day by local families and scoff food scraps from public bins. Punjab is a place where dairy rules, and we felt right at home.

I have a lot of time for milk and all its delicious offshoots. My partner Jack is a Taranaki farm boy whose parents always comment that we are “doing our bit to support Fonterra farmers” when they see the contents of our fridge. Cheese is at the bottom of my personal food pyramid — an ‘eat most’ food. We buy silver-top milk and scrap over who gets the cream off the top of the bottle. Jack and I plan our road trips north to visit his family around when the Fonterra cheese factory shop in Eltham, South Taranaki, is open. Its fickle hours are its only downside, and well made up for by the $2 wheels of Kāpiti Kikorangi and giant misshapen lumps of parmesan that cost a fiver and fill our fridge and freezer.

Dense, sweet kulfi on a stick, and lassi, which is churned by hand from fresh curd, then topped with a dollop of butter and extra cream to create a dairy ménage à trois (Photos: Georgia Munn)

When we read about the food of Punjab state — heavy on the tandoor, heavy on the bread, heavy on the cream — we were keen. I kicked a strong bout of Delhi belly that had followed me from its eponymous city through North India just in time to indulge. Punjab has the highest rate of dairy consumption in India, a fact that’s unsurprising to me when I retrospectively analyse our Amritsari diet.

Our first meal in the city sounded unchallenging: famous Amritsari kulcha, a stuffed bread similar to naan but with a layer of fillings like spiced potato or minced cauliflower. I chose the paneer filling, and it came out on a thali plate with chickpea curry and a dollop of vinegary onion pickle. Sitting on the bread was a gigantic, ominous lump of fridge-cold butter, just starting to melt into the surface. After swirling around for full saturation, we tore into our breads and immediately realised we might not be cut out for the Punjabi life. The butter plus paneer plus rich curry was a lot to deal with.

The lassi did not help — not recognisable as the same product as a mango one from your local Indian takeaway, it was strong and tangy and sort of farmy, unflavoured but slightly sweetened. After it’s churned by hand from fresh curd, the lassi is topped with a dollop of butter and extra cream to create a dairy ménage à trois. Jack couldn’t handle the taste — it reminded him of barrels of colostrum kept in the dairy sheds back home on the farm.

Amritsar’s photogenic Golden Temple, the most important site of pilgrimage in Sikhism (Photo: Georgia Munn)

Near Amritsar’s famous and incredibly photogenic Golden Temple, touts aggressively sell their kulfi, sticks of an Indian ice cream that is much denser and sweeter than the likes of Tip Top vanilla. The pyramid popsicles have that caramelised note like canned condensed milk, and come studded with pistachios, crushed almonds or dried fruit. I sat in the shade one afternoon eating kulfi in the square when, without warning, a woman popped her bonny toddler on my lap. He immediately started screaming as she took a photo. I wish I’d asked her to send me a copy.

At a restaurant that specialised in convincing tandoori fake meat, the roti rolls that come in pairs contained an honest to god ingot of paneer each. Despite always complaining that there’s never enough paneer in Indian food at home, this was just too much. At Kesar Da Dhaba, a famous backstreet curry house that’s been slinging thali for 102 years, my dal makhani (here’s a hint: ‘makhani’ means ‘with butter’) tipped me over the edge. I became convinced that I could smell butter everywhere, that I was actually starting to sweat butter.

After four days, I was craving lettuce. We gave up and got Subway.


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