to make Tandums, a product unique to the Taranaki-based company. Their New Plymouth factory now has several lines of pancake production, with spiral freezers to snap freeze each individual product. The company won the supreme award at the recent TSB Bank Business Excellence Awards. Looking ahead, although Australia is currently the company’s largest export market, Clare says there is good potential to export its products to larger markets such as the Middle East, and also China, which Van Dyck is researching. Exports sales rose by nearly 60 per cent last financial year, and now make up a substantial portion of the company’s revenue. The company has found that the way it describes its products, whether it be pancakes or hotcakes or crepes, is important for making sure customers know what they are buying. In the Middle East, the packaging has to carry an Arabic translation and be Halal certified. “The end customers decide what products will sell in the end. It’s important not to go into a new market thinking that you have a great New Zealand product and it will sell automatically. You’ve got to find out what the consumer wants,” Porto Carrero says. NZTE is the Government’s international business development agency. Find more international insights at www.nzte.govt.nz/news and twitter.com/NZTEnews. INGREDIENTS Imagine how easy it would be to get the kids to eat their Brussels sprouts if they tasted like sherbet lemons, or to enjoy cake that isn’t fattening. How about a plant that grows tomatoes and potatoes at the same time, or a pizza that can stay fresh for three years? Whilst these innovations might sound like a utopian realm in the far distant future, they actually already exist. And a BBC television programme Tomorrow’s Foods, earmarked to be screened in New Zealand at some stage, will open our eyes to what the future of sustenance will present us with. If you’re a scoffer, take a look at the evidence: Miraculin, a substance derived from berries of a plant called synsepalum dulcificum that grows only in West Africa, makes everything from vegetables to lemons taste as though they have been sugar-coated. It is not sweet in itself, so does not add any calories to foods it is eaten with, and has been given the all-clear in Japan, where it is used to treat sugar addicts. Europe and the United States are tipped to follow. Cake – that dastardly enemy of good Inge Vercammin and Marcel Naenen F U T U R E O F F O O D nutrition – looks set to be good for us in the future, so long as we pop a pill first. If alginate, derived from brown seaweed, is consumed before eating fat-laden foods, dieters can actually lose weight by eating cake, and without unpleasant side effects. The Tomtato, a plant that grows tomatoes above the surface and potatoes below it, has taken 15 years to develop in Britain and is the result of grafting the two different plants together, helped by the fact that they come from the same plant family. And pizza developed by the US military can stay fresh for three years by combining glycerol - a colourless, odourless, viscous liquid that repels bacteria - with dried mozzarella and pressure-cooked meat. It will apparently be ideal for troops stationed in the desert. What’s next? Fruit and veges grown without soil? A mind-reading menu that knows what you want before you do? A robot that mimics the moves of a top chef? Don’t laugh…because they already exist. 25
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