Tony Cato: Pirongia Mountain Vegetables Owner on the growth in farmers' markets around New Zealand

It seems you really can’t beat locally grown produce. 

Recent numbers show farmers’ markets around the country now support over a thousand food producers – attracting more than 50 thousand shoppers every week. 

Tony Cato, owner of Pirongia Mountain Vegetables, told Mike Hosking that the industry’s been doing nothing but growing. 

They’ve been in the markets for nearly twenty years, he says, and especially after Covid they’ve seen an increase in customers wanting to know exactly where their food comes from.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Farmers' markets. I've got some new data around them this morning.
They now support more than a thousand food producers in
this country, attracting fifty thousand shoppers every week. Tony Kato
is one example of that. He runs Parongia Mountain Vegetables
and he's well, there's Tony morning.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good morning, Mike caw are you today very well?

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Indeed, I can tell by your voice immediately you're not
the Tony Kato I used to work with many years
ago at radio in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
No, no, no, there will be someone else. No no,
I'm just a market gardener here in Prongia.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
What do you grow?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
We grow predominantly root vegetables, potatoes, broccoli and bressacas or
we also grow twenty ton of cabbage for the sauerkraut industry,
your napper cabbages for your kimchi kimchie sprinkles with the
guys who run who grow those things, arm On.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Kim Are you you're the source of the kim cheese sprinkles?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Oh? I certainly, yeah, mate. We grow a fair number
of those who've just been put on the ground now
ready for our autumn and winter harvests.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Do you eat the Kim cheese croyer.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
To do that. Yes, we do. Yep. We put them
on just about everything there a bit of a top up.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
They're the greatest thing in the world, apart from the
industry itself. Do you take all your stuff to market?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yes, of our produce goes to three farmers' markets by
a plenty, and the two whitekado ones every Saturday and Sunday.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
What's your sense of the farmer's market industry? Is it going?
Is it growing? Booming? And you know it's become a thing?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Oh, most definitely, Yes, yep. Every market we go, do
we see an increase of different different types. It's been
nothing but grown. We've been in the markets for fifteen
nearly twenty years now, and just especially after the COVID area,
we've just seen an increase in customers wanting to know
where that food comes from, and do they get to

(01:51):
speak directly to the grower so they know exactly where
it's from? Its irritation.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
The story is the thing, and people like to know
the story, where it came from, who you are, what
you grew, where the where the farmers and that that
that means something to people, doesn't it?

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yes, it certainly does. Yes, there's nothing like quite like
selling something straight to the to the consumer. And that's
super interested in that and where it comes from, especially
and a lot of us. It's fresher, its tastes better.
It's generally picked the day before you we get to
the markets, so you're not going to get it much
better than that.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Couldn't agree more. Well, I'm glad it's going so well
for you, Tony. Nice to talk to you. Appreciate it
very much, and God bless you on the kim Chi sprinkles,
Tony Kata Perongia Mountain. It's just these farmers' markets and
and not that I don't like supermarket. Supermarkets have got
their place, and I'm a supporter of competition in the
supermarkets and all that sort of stuff. But why you would
buy vegetables from a supermarket, I've got no idea. Why
you would buy your meat from a supermarket. I've got

(02:49):
no idea. There are specialists out there who will do
things that you just can't if you've if you just
live at a supermarket, that's all you know. There are
people out there who will do things to meet and
products and vegeta bulls and fruit generally when you get
hold of it, you just will not believe how magical
things can be. Speaking of which, by the way, do
you realize Country Calendar is sixty years old today? It

(03:10):
is this very day, sixty years ago that Country Calendar
started and what a thing. It's the greatest New Zealand
television program ever produced, apart from seven sharp the years
twenty fourteen through seventeen when I was on it. For
more from the Mike Asking Breakfast, listen live to news
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