Otago produce in spotlight

Otago Daily Times

11-07-2025

Fruit synonymous with Central Otago will feature on this weekend's episode of top chef Ben Bayly's A New Zealand Food Story .
Bayly, who runs Aosta and Little Aosta in Arrowtown, the historic Bathhouse in Queenstown, award-winning Ahi and Origine in Auckland and The Grounds in the Waitākere Ranges, is in his fourth series of New Zealand Food Story which follows him around the country seeking out some of the best food producers in the country.
"I believe our Kiwi produce is world class," Bayly says.
"But the faceless piece of steak or fruit in the supermarket — how was it raised or grown? We need to connect with the growers, the producers, the harvesters and shine a light on their care and commitment."
In this weekend's episode he seeks out apricots and cherries in Central Otago visiting Cromwell's Jackson Orchards and Forest Lodge Orchard (Electric Cherries), near Mt Pisa.
He meets owner Kevin Jackson, a fourth-generation orchardist, his daughter Kristin Nolan and grandson Jackson Nolan. Bayly travels around the orchard in its tour bus sampling fruit such as peaches, apricots and nectarines along the way, declaring he has tasted the "best ever" apricot.
Then he visits Forest Lodge, a 6ha cherry production business, with 1650 trees per hectare planted using an upright fruiting offshoot-trained system.
Owners, Mike and Rebecca Casey and Euan and Rachel White, aim to develop a premium cherry orchard and be sustainable so they have an electric tractor, an electrified irrigation pump, and New Zealand's first electric frost–fighting fans. They are also developing an electric foliage sprayer.
In 2022, they set themselves a challenge of going completely fossil-fuel-free, hoping this will potentially save about $50,000 per year in energy bills.
Bayly takes inspiration from the producers he visits by cooking using ingredients he has found on his journeys. The knowledge picked up also helps him in his own garden, Ahi Organic Gardens in South Auckland, which grows seasonal produce for his Auckland restaurants.
Previous series of New Zealand Food Stories have been aired on SBS in Australia, on National Geographic Asia and the Middle East and has played in France and Norway as well as on Air New Zealand, United Airlines, Lufthansa and Air Canada flights. The show
New Zealand Food Story , TVNZ1, tonight, 7pm. — APL