The Country 09/10/25: Blake Holgate talks to Hamish McKay

Rabobank’s Head of Sustainable Business Development takes a closer look at the bank’s research, in conjunction with KiwiHarvest, on noteworthy changes in how Kiwis shop and prepare food, as well as where and what they eat.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Research should Buy Rauba Bank and Kiwi Harvest has highlighted
some yeah, some all some amazing stuff really and how
Kiwi shop and go about preparing their food as well
as where and what they eat. So we're going to
delve into this a little bit today. Blake Holgate from
Rabobank joins us to look at this afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Blake, afternoon, Hamish, great to have you with us.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
The first, well, let's just deal with this. What people
are spending on food Kiwi households and average of two
hundred and forty dollars per week. I don't know how
they do that, but that seems and that's not much
of an increase on twenty twenty three.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
No, yes, that's right, Hamish. So that was an increase
of two dollars over the last two years. Now, what
we know is food price inflation has gone up by
significantly more than that, so STEP's New Zealand tells us
it's gone up by around six percent over that time.
So what that means is Kiwi households have relatively less
purchasing pair with their groceries and are having to make

(00:58):
some decisions around what they do with that. And what
we heard was a third of them are buying, less
a third of them downgrading the products or brands, and
half a key we's are actively more looking at those
promotions and specials.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
You just can't rock into the supermarket, can you with
the trolley and make those changes on the hoof? Can you?
There's a lot of thought going into this to be
able to do two hundred and forty dollars a week
given the food inflation.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, exactly, hey, Marshon, And that's another behavior that came
through in the stats. So more key we are saying
preparing meals that they're sitting down for the week and going, gee,
what are we going to be buying and cotton this week?
And preparing lists. So they're heading into the supermarket with
their mind up on what they're going to buy, and
they tending to stick to that.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, my wife would do a huge chicken Lasanya, and
I'll say to twenty one year old home from Lincoln
for the holidays or whatever, mate, that's your dinner for
the next three nights. I'm sure there's lots of that happening.
Put together a tasty meal and spread it out.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
A bit absolutely, you know, thinking how you can Again,
it's about maximizing that the value of the spend when
you do go into the supermarket.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, the flower effect of course, so is the places
that we go to eat or get our takeaways from
they take a hit because of this. And you can
see that it's cyclical right through the right through the community.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, I mean, you know, right through the supply chain. Right,
So anyone that's producing food in New Zealand that goes
into the domestic food market will in some way be
feeling it. And different types of food and different supply
chains are more or less exposed to the domestic market.
But those that are, I suspect already feeling it.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Eating meat, I mean, meat isn't cheap. How are we
seeing what trends are we seeing there?

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Well, this is quite an interesting one, Hamish. So we
still get one in five key we saying that planning
to reduce red meat consumption going forward. But this is
actually a step that's trended down over the last three surveys,
so I've got less key weeds saying they're going to
reduce their red meat consumption. And interestingly, when you dive
into the generational stats, it's that Generation Z so that

(03:18):
that young generation have actually the numbers that saying they're
going to reduce red meat consumptions dropped, so there's actually
more of them looking to consume red meat consumption, which
is We've found quite an interesting stat Yeah, interesting.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Isn't it. Their whole sort of fitness regime, the run clubs,
all those sorts of things and the proteins and everything.
Ye I'm not surprised though that gen Z and that
eight into twenty eight spectrum are looking at increasing their
meat consumption, turning a few ideas on their head. Right,
food are provenance, This is increasingly important. People want to

(03:55):
know where it's been produced.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, yep. Another interesting that that can to hamishes Kiwis
want to know where their food comes from and more
willing to purchase local food if they know where it's
coming from, which also ties into another stat that said,
you know, New Zealand's had a general high awareness around

(04:19):
food production systems and where food is coming from.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
There's some interesting stuff on here. And also we saw
the rise and rise of the likes of Hollow Fresh
and uber Eats and the various ways of getting pre
prepared meals to your house. But a bit of a
drop off there. I guess.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah. So when we first started asking this question, you know,
five or six years ago, those home delivery services were
relatively new, so we started to see substantial growth. And
then obviously COVID came along with the lockdown, and restaurants
and food service providers and really a real and the

(05:00):
use of those services. That's actually dropped off substantially over
the last two years. As obviously restaurants have come back
online and normal eating out behaviors that have come back,
but also at the cost of living, as we touched
on at the start of the m few people are
looking at how they can reduce their foods being costs

(05:21):
and I suspect this has thrown shown through through these steps.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
We're talking with Blake Holgate Rabobank, head of Sustainable Business Development. Blake,
I put you on the spot here. Do you do
a weekly list yourself? Are you doing a food budget?
Do you do you know what you're going to buy
when you go into that supermarket and the meals you're
going to prepare.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Well, I'm told by my wife what we're going to
have Hamish, so she is very well organized. To be fair,
I wouldn't say it's one shop per a week, but
there's sort of one main shop and then there'll be
a good instructions through the week to pick up bits
and pieces. Say, as we go along the.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Old you grab and they think it takes five minutes,
and it's half an hour by the time you've gone
into the supermarket, right, but must complain, Yeah, no, look it,
look at it. It's yeah, it's It's one of those things.
I get the how much we're going to spend on
groceries this week and then just need just gonna pop
out and get you. It's I think it's the same
in many households. But I had great research, very interesting

(06:21):
and Blake good to chat. Thank you very much for
joining us here on the country.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Thanks Amus,