Kilo of NZ cheese now $20 highlights our nations food insecurity and free market madness
Cost of tasty cheese breaks $20 a kilo
Despite food prices seeming to slow their surge upwards, it looks like money still doesn’t grow on cheese.
An eagle-eyed shopper in Wellington’s Petone noted the price of a one kg block of cheese has now reached $20.
The Stuff reader was shopping at Petone Woolworths when he came upon the price tag that showed your once-typical block of New Zealand’s finest is now priced at 20 bucks.
The supermarket ticket breaks the price down to $2 per 100 grams.
In your New Zealand money that’s a whole green Queen or possibly the amount of your tax cut for the fortnight or whatever $20 means to you.
It’s not just butter, it’s also butter…
Butter prices slipping out of reach
Whether you’re measuring it for baking, using it in cooking or spreading it on your toast, butter is a versatile but increasingly expensive household item.
In a non-scientific survey, Stuff has found in recent months the price of the golden goodness has increased – not just for our own kitchens but for food vendors also.
Looking at the 500gram salted and unsalted butter slabs from Mainland, Anchor, Westland and Rolling Meadow the rounded average price from Pak’nSave, Woolworths and New World supermarkets was $7.30.
The most expensive 500 grams of butter we found was Mainland Semi-Soft spreadable butter for a whopping $13.29 ($11.89 with a club card) online at New World.
Why should we be forced to pay the same price as the Chinese Middle Class can afford?
The Chinese Middle Class is forecast to grow to 787 million!
Why are we paying a price that is imposed upon us by a middle class market that is many times larger than our total population?
Why can’t we eat the harvest of our own nation?
NZ’s food system in ‘disarray’, scientist says
New Zealand’s food system is in “disarray”, with major cross-sector challenges to resilience, a leading scientist says.
There was a growing need for a national food strategy to improve the country’s food resilience, Te Whare Wānaka o Aoraki Lincoln University Professor Alan Renwick said.
Food systems needed to withstand shocks from international conflicts or disasters, as well as deal with accessibility and health concerns, he said.
One example cited by Renwick was of price shocks during the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said food price inflation during that time was more severe and persisted longer in New Zealand than elsewhere.
That was partly to do with a food system that was very reliant on imports and a concentrated agriculture system, he said.
“The idea to me about food system resilience is we’re able to maintain good access to food for our people, at a reasonable price, even when these shocks come along.”
He said the rise in food inflation in New Zealand since 2021 had resulted in further challenges for families.
“We need to understand how our food system and supply chains differ from other countries. Is it that supermarkets have too little competition? Is it a consequence of our export-focused primary production that is detrimental to our food supply?”
We keep getting told we feed 40million, but that number is based on us selling milk powder as a base line ingredient filler for the manufactured food industry. The PR spin pretends it’s wholesome NZ cheese and milk and meat those 40million are eating when the truth is the vast majority of what we export is basic bitch milk powder used as a filler ingredient!
A recent report on food security found NZ had incredibly low food security because it was so open market driven and refused to subsidise farmers.
Which is where we on the Left must drive the debate.
We should absolutely consider subsidising food grown by NZ farmers and horticulturalists and our seafood and meat and dairy that generates a 15% price reduction for all NZ produce consumed here.
For growers we need to protect our most productive growing land for food by giving those producers tax breaks to ensure they can continue to feed NZers first.
Rebuilding a direct link between the harvest grown here, the people who grow it and a grateful local market who enjoy the product WITH a 15% price reduction.
Climate change will kill global free market supply chains, we are locked into hyper-regionalism. We need to build new economic structures, subsidising NZ kai for the domestic market would lock in certainty for producers while strengthening food security for the population.
We have to find new ways of working together to ensure we can survive what’s coming.
Fitch Ratings analysts warned NZ last month that the next 10 years of economic growth was dangerously stunted.
This matters because it is ratings analysts like Fitch who warn the market if we are good for all the money we borrowed.
They base that on future projections of our economic cycle and their analysis is terrible.
Fitch have made clear to us that Dairy, Tourism and exports to China have waned and can not grow beyond the manner in which we have already grown them.
We have allowed free market dynamics to be created where we as Kiwis are competing against far larger markets for the kai that was grown in our own country!
Why shouldn’t our children eat from the Harv eat of our own nation?
Why have we allowed the corporates to take the harvest from our nation and make us compete against far larger markets who will pay more than the domestic population in NZ can afford!
Food banks and local Pātaka Kai–free small community pantries–are everywhere in our “land of plenty”. Kids school lunches have been downgraded to dried out sandwiches from nutritious hot meals thanks to “Incel Dave”, and people are definitely suffering food insecurity aka hunger. One of the local buskers operates outside a bakery now to increase his chances of getting a bite. Supermarkets need to be sat on and a “Kiwimart” set up in competition.
With this Govt. attacking disabled, mentally ill, unions (they want a law stopping contractors who are workers even going to Court to be heard!), and beneficiaries, more of you can expect to be burgled, menaced, and encounter aggressive begging. Social media is full of scrounging and selling $10 and $20 items, hungry unwanted dogs are roaming.
Two years of this is not going to be fun for hundreds of thousands of NZers.
Why should farmers not be able to maximize the fruit if their labour?
I’m all for that. Likewise I am all for farming paying the full price for their environmental impacts. Arguable if they do this. On top of this is climate change, now I’m not a climate change junkie, I am all for the existence of farming, now this kinda sounds strange but anyone that’s been following – independent news – knows that farming is being decimated all over the world – in the name of climate change. So, if farming has a hope of surviving here in NZ, then they may need to start treating the locals a lot better than they have been…..
Farming is not being decimated. Utter bullshit.
Well, this is one issue where I do want to be wrong. Given your surety, you must have a wealth of information at the ready to share. This issue needs it, otherwise….
“The Netherlands’ Farm Crisis, Explained” – https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/netherlands-farm-crisis-explained-nick-ottens
“Hundreds of Dutch farmers sign up to close their livestock farms under new scheme” – https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/11/30/dutch-farmers-could-be-paid-to-close-their-livestock-farms-under-new-scheme
“Political turmoil hits Dutch farm buy-out scheme” – https://www.ruralnewsgroup.co.nz/dairy-news/dairy-world-news/political-turmoil-hits-dutch-farm-buy-out-scheme
“Fewer, older, poorer: France’s farming crisis in numbers” – https://www.france24.com/en/business/20240124-france-farming-crisis-in-numbers
“Number of U.S. Farms Continue to Decline” – https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/number-us-farms-continue-decline-kevin-van-trump
“Total area of land in United States farms from 2000 to 2023 (in 1,000 acres)* ” – https://www.statista.com/statistics/196104/total-area-of-land-in-farms-in-the-us-since-2000/
“America Has a Farming Crisis” – https://www.newsweek.com/us-farming-crisis-h2a-visa-reform-labor-shortage-1878530
“The number of farms in the world is declining, here’s why it matters to you” – https://www.colorado.edu/today/2023/05/11/number-farms-world-declining-heres-why-it-matters-you
The same farmers polluting the environment? The same farmers stealing the water? The same farmers polluting the water? Key sold 49% of our public hydro power supply to create a $400million irrigation slush fund for those fucking farmers?
And you want to give them more? Haven’t domestic kiwis already paid enough for that product?
Are these the same farmers that generate overseas income to pay for the governments expenses on all the items that keeps this country surviving.
a deminishing amount every year now down to 20% dependant on price
Individual farmers operate in a system be that open slather free market, smp subsidies like in the 80s, town milk supply year round milking contracts, local delivery in glass bottles, subsidised prices on bread and milk for consumers like in the 60s, inflation control maximum retail prices like in the 70s. Governments ostensibl job is to run the economy in the best interests of all participants but that is never the case.
If the maximum retail price of a 1kg block of cheddar is controlled at $10 is it still a profitable option compared to exporting whole milk powder at $3.40 per kg?
Does Fonterra donate butter and cheese to the food banks or just dollars to aus banks.
Fine, if they maximized the fruit of their own labour. But what many are trying to do is maximize their profits from the use of grossly exploited migrant labour. If farmers milked their own cows, vintners picked their own grapes and orchardists harvested their own apples this would be a happy and prosperous country.
Fair point if they didn’t wish to socialise the cost of their pollution.
Poor old China, a villain, yet, yet, yet again. Otherwise, we’ve been paying market prices for donkeys, back when China’s middle class was a fanciful notion let alone a reality. The corporates and their financiers only do what government allows them to do and yes, our government can do almost anything because we allow them to. We get what we deserve thus we deserve the shyt we’ve been getting for a long time now. And we’ll deserve the shittier shyt to come. Only when we find a way to put the same collective level of pressure onto Govt that we used to be able to do prior to neoliberalism will the shyt we face stop getting stinkier!
You can get 1kg of Edam at Pak n Save online for $11.50 today. You just avoid Woolworths and expensive brands or even try eating something healthy.
Who would have thought a $20 block of cheese could become a metaphor for outrage.
Why focus on dairy products.
Rump steak. $24 kg Pak n Save on Tuesday imported from China.
No local stuff.
I still can’t believe how we fell for the Kumara rort last year.
Grower on TV says he lost 70% of his crops. Prices up 300% meaning the return for someone was exactly the for the crop as it was the year before.
Very proud he was that he didn’t have to sack his permanent staff. No mention of his temps and casuals. So this guy got same turnover for less cost and we were meant to feel sorry for him.
End of story: The price of cheese is theft!!
If the Dairy Farmers are paid $8 per kilo of milk solids and 1kilo of milk solids makes approximately 1.4 kilos of cheese then without any other costs the cheese is worth $5.40 per kilo. (My maths might be suspect) So the other $14.60 is made up in manufacturing, storage, transport, wholesale, retail costs plus GST along the way.
And if PacknSave’s 1kg Edam is $11.50? Less milk solids or is the supply chain clipping the ticket? Or simply an instore marketing strategy?
Another solution – producers have a stipulated minimum percentage that must go to New Zealand market. Escape the madness of globalisation.
eH! SNOUT OUT THE WHENAU, overnight our native pride non flight, yet these flighters of capitalism its, debt purchase, its cancer is not only our Kiwi pandemic, but also
so called freedom lands of profit exploit of land and our banking structures, what time we stand locked in debt dare say.
Cheese was never this price under Labour.
User pays under National.
Are these the same farmers that generate overseas income to pay for the governments expenses on all the items that keeps this country surviving.
no they are now becoming large corporations.
Who would have thought a $20 block of cheese could become a metaphor for outrage.
Only morons accepting, we have to pay the price sale overseas. Morons our money value and cheese price, is more expence, than your lie told market value, that not only exploits our chese butter value, that you exept the copporit lie, not only, do we need compulsory Unionism, but also awaken our shool education.