What to expect at the Auckland Food Show: Spray-on wasabi, ice cream cubes and everything else we sampled

NZ Herald

24-07-2025

Bite-sized sausages, new from Hellers, are available in abundance at The Food Show in Auckland. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
From Friday to Sunday, the Auckland Showgrounds will host a rolling maul of gluttons, gourmands and food and drink aficionados. Thousands will sink their teeth into the edible wares of more than 200 exhibitors flogging everything from salt and vinegar flavoured cheese to yuzu and lime marshmallow.
My advice? Come hungry, thirsty and towing a suitcase – no amount of protein-infused ice cream will prepare your clavicle for the weight of a tote bag full of hemp fermented pesto and kimchi.
My brief was simple: walk, sample and report. It was food for thought and I had more than a few of them ...
1. Is there anything they won't put protein in? Pancake mix. Ice cream. Coffee. This is a very bad year to be an actual protein.
Grande Ice Cream at The Food Show, Auckland, was one of the many products powered with extra protein. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
2. 1983 called and it wants the recipe for Hellers curried beef sausage. This is a seriously Mum-approved smallgood.
3. Raspberry and pomegranate, apple and lychee, lemon and watermelon. Bundaberg, you've changed.
4. If the pork-free bacon is made from chicken, is it still bacon? If the pork-free bacon is made from lamb, is it still bacon? Asking for a confused piglet.
5. Citrus australasica has been growing in Queensland and New South Wales for approximately 18 million years. I suppose it was only a matter of time before New Zealand joined the finger lime party.
6. Lady Alchemy's tamari, wasabi, ginger and horopito spritz might be the best thing since sliced sushi.
Lady Alchemy sprays at The Food Show, Auckland. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
7. Artisan scones are a thing and across the provinces, grandmothers are turning in their graves (but, also, raspberry and white chocolate scones – thank you, Sconelicious).
8. Could the first store to stock cumin-seed Zeera Bites (from Fiji company Punjas) please call me?
9. If the only thing missing from your life was a Peking duck-flavoured snack chip made from Scottish seaweed and quinoa, then go see the people at Macy and Tailor.
10. Have you people never seen salami before?
11. Did you sniff Colin Mathura Jeffree's tiny fairy bread lapel pin because he told you it was scented? He was lying.
12. Tommy, the new honey and ginger liqueur from Thomson Whisky, was probably not developed as a cure for the common cold but it's definitely worth experimenting.
Annabelle White adds some cooking, and comedic, content to The Food Show, Auckland. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
13. SideCar's smoky habanero mayo. Proving Marlborough makes more than a great sav.
14. I counted three food writers with sesame paste dry noodles in their bags and at least one of them was me. I absolutely did not judge any of them.
15. Cubed ice cream in a triangle cone – discuss. Treble Cones are the genius triple treat coming soon to a mall, and an Instagram account, near you.
16. Breakfast in a bag? Radix (fruit, seeds, just add water, etc) tastes way better than it sounds.
17. On any given yesterday, Fair Food rescued three tonnes of edible fresh produce and redistributed it to people who didn't have enough to eat.
Kim Knight is a senior journalist with the New Zealand Herald's lifestyle desk. She was a restaurant critic for Canvas magazine and has a Master's in Gastronomy from AUT.