Defining Kiwi quality

If you were to jump in a little boat and head north from Auckland's Orakei Marina on New Zealand’s North Island, your next major landfall would be the village of Khatyrka, in Russia. Head east and almost 9,700 kilometres later you would arrive at the prime Chilean surfing spot of Purema Beach. South of New Zealand is the virtually uninhabited Antarctica, with the closest landmass being Australia to the west, but this is still 2,869 kilometres away, or a two-week journey across the Tasman Sea in your little boat. For New Zealand’s food industry, this immense remoteness is a major asset, one that in today's environmental jargon is called biosecurity.

Biosecurity and food safety

So how does being an island nation make New Zealand one of the world’s most trusted suppliers of quality meats, seafood, fresh produce and confectionaries? Well, being surrounded by vast oceans helps protect it from the ailments of the outside world. New Zealand is completely free of a wide range of animal diseases, which in turn leads to healthier animals that don’t require toxic medicines. Meat quality is second to none and the result of raising healthy animals trickles down to dairy products, which eventually make their way into New Zealand’s famous milk chocolate. The same goes for crops, as the country's strong biosecurity control stops pests and diseases before they arrive. Healthy animals and crops mean equally healthy humans and that’s why over 140 countries look to New Zealand for safe, fresh and tasty food.

New Zealand ranks first in the world for food safety. From peanut butter and yoghurt to beef and salmon, every product exported is overseen by the government’s Ministry for Primary Industries, a body that strictly enforces food safety laws across the whole food production supply chain.