AUTUMN 2009

Provisions success at Cuisine Artisan Awards

(report courtesy cuisine.co.nz)

Provisions
Roasted Cherry Chutney
"Jane Shaw and Pauline Murphy must be good cooks – their skill shows through in this great example of chutney. With a hint of smokiness and a lovely texture, the balance of acidity and sweetness lends a 'sweet and sour' flavour. And, as one judge commented, it's cooked long enough, which is often not the case. It's at once unexpected yet you could almost think your granny made it – if she was a clever cook, too. It has that sort of wholesomeness as well, with no preservatives, additives, setting agents or food colourings used in the small handmade batches.

Keen champions of Central Otago produce, Jane and Pauline work closely with local orchardists and Molyneux Packhouse in Cromwell to source the best fruit. It was their enthusiasm for the Central 'fruit bowl' that led them to open their Cromwell store and develop their own range of preserves to stock it. They both work hands on, from picking and selecting fruit, making the products, and filling and labelling the jars. Chutney lovers should be thankful."

Previous News: Winter 2008

Looking ahead to the coming season, our Central Otago Farmers Market begins on Labour weekend's Sunday 26 October and will run every Sunday throughout November, December, January and February. Fans of our legendary Provisions sticky buns will then be able to quench their addiction along with our freshly baked breads, brioche, fruit focaccias, bagels, sticky gingerbread and more. All our fabulous stallholders will be back again this season and we are working very hard to try to encourage more local vegetable growers to participate in our lovely wee market.

We launched our latest product, Pinot Noir jelly, to the big wide world this year and it looks like we will struggle to keep this on our shelves as it is flying out the door already.

On the global front, Provisions products are now sold in twelve Darriwill Farm stores throughout Victoria in Australia as well as in a new kiwi inspired store, Fresh, just opened in Molloolooba, Queensland. We are working with a new distributor in Australia with a view to Provisions range being more widely available at top end food outlets throughout Australia. Our Hong Kong agent, Rachel Brebner from Pure Gourmet, continues to work hard to get ours and a number of other New Zealand gourmet food products on the shelves in the legendary Olivers and 360 degrees in downtown Hong Kong. Unfortunately we had a bad experience with our first foraye into the USA market with our agent going into receivership and until we find a really trusty USA importer we are leaving our USA labels in the box!

Here in New Zealand we are already receiving Christmas orders. Remember Provisions makes moist full of fruit 750g Christmas cakes wrapped with ribbon presented in a wooden crate. They make a lovely gift for friends and family. We also make boxes of rich Christmas mince pies to order in December and can make up gift boxes of our goodies.

Provisions joined seven other local wine and food producers at the Christchurch Food show back in April and it was great to talk directly to customers and promote our wonderful Central Otago food and wine. Pauline will be the Auckland Hospitality show on the Cucina Foods stand in early September and will also be doing various instore tastings. You can also see us later this year at the Hunter's Garden Marborough Garden Fete in November as well as at the Christchurch A & P show.

This is what Kate Fraser from the Christchurch Press Zest food pages said about our Pear + chilli chutney... "This is the best thing to happen to this year's pear crop...pear sans peer."

We were recently invited to enter the Central Otago District Council's Business Excellence award and this whole navel gazing exercise was in a funny way a great opportunity to look objectively at what, how and why we do the things we do. The awards will be judged later this year...so watch this space.

On the marketing front, Jane recently spent two weeks in the North Island travelling from Wellington up to Auckland catching up with our customers and seeing all the great outlets where we are sold. In October we are lining up a busy schedule of instore tastings in Auckland.

Bon appetit - eat fresh and buy local.

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