31 August 2011

BOUQUETS & BRICKBATS

Some mornings I wake up all fired and opinionated. Today is typical. What’s got me going is my attendance last night at the Good Egg Awards.

Essentially the Royal NZ SPCA initiated Good Egg Awards to recognise commitment to consumer and food industry use of humanely produced eggs. In other words, as an association that safeguards the welfare of animals, they’re concerned about some of the more suspect treatment of laying hens. (So you thought SPCA gathered up stray dogs and saved kittens from being drowned at birth? Think again.) Good Eggs from happy hens for healthy intelligent consumers. A great recipe.

The Good Egg Awards were given in a variety of sections including retail, restaurant, café and catering, farmer, food manufacturing, and takeaways. I was pretty pleased to see a second generation McDonald’s franchise holder from Christchurch win the takeaway section. The genial man who collected his award explained he was committed to using great food like Good Eggs, even in the face of research that showed his policy didn’t increase business. Kakako, Henergy, Farro Fresh, The Library Café in Onehunga were the other impressive winners on the night along with several restaurants with high impact in Sky City’s restaurant group. They must use zillions of good eggs!

Consumers who want to follow the fine example of these winners can look for the SPCA”s Blue Tick on egg cartons. (Pic above). Once you spot that tick, you’ll never go back. Your conscience won’t let you.

All this good stuff in the same seven days when our giant food production company, Fonterra (or FONTERROR as they have become in my mind,) decided to pull the plug on paying farmers for organic production of milk. Having encouraged farmers into this arena, they’re now crying over the cost of organic spilt milk and deem it uneconomic. What about us who want it? What about the courageous farmers who invested in alternative farming methods? What about the future generations who guard their health? Come on Fonterra, sometimes things are not about a rather small figure on the bottom line, especially when you’re a multi, multi million dollar company. Even though you are the backbone of our NZ economy. Please rethink this one.