Māori Future Foods

A three-part research project into Māori future foods looked at the challenges and opportunities for sustainable foods telling Māori stories, and particularly for Māori developed and branded foods. Part of that study included investigating the reactions of consumers to those foods.

The study was carried out in New Zealand, as well as in the export market of Singapore - where consumers are exposed to an especially wide range of imported foodstuffs (and it is a gateway to other Asian export markets). Māori branding on food packaging scored favourably in consumer testing, especially that  conducted in the Singapore export market.

The research was supported through a Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment Catalyst Fund programme, with (then) Massey University Doctoral researcher Summer Rangimaarie Wright (Ngāti Porou) conducting the research at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University for her Doctor of Philosophy in Food Technology thesis.

The setting for much of Dr Wright’s work was the Food Experience and Sensory Testing (also known as ‘Feast’) laboratory at Massey, which is overseen by Professor Joanna Hort. The laboratory’s focus is on understanding the multiple factors affecting consumer perceptions of foods and beverages, and the choices they consequently make. Professor Hort explains the Māori economy is a significant one for Aotearoa New Zealand, worth around 30 billion dollars, so it is important to understand what is driving that value and how it can be supported and developed.

Feast is a purpose-designed and built sensory facility at Massey University and a hub for consumer research, training and consultancy. It hosts traditional sensory labs but is only one of a handful of its type in the world with a flexible digital immersive space based at a university (the others being in Europe and America).  The space enables different eating places to be replicate - such as a café or a restaurant (anywhere in the world),  or a hospital ward, or in a home - thanks to the cutting-edge technology that projects 360-degree video and still photography onto the lab walls accompanied by appropriate audio cues.

This assists researchers to fully test and measure perceptions about taste and texture, as well as presentations including packaging. “Where you eat changes how you feel about what you eat,” says Professor Hort. Feast is not only an innovative space for scientific research but also provides a consumer-centred capability to support the New Zealand agri-food industry.

For Dr Wright’s research, she began by interviewing those involved in Māori enterprises, to reveal there was a strong alignment between plant-based future foods and Māori aspirations, including fulfilling kinship responsibilities, advancing collective wellbeing, and protecting and expressing Māori rights and interests.

The people Dr Wright interviewed also identified place branding – identifying the country or region – as a powerful way to develop, protect and ultimately market cultural and country ownership in the same way that, for example, champagne is can be made only in the Champagne region of France and marketed as such due to strict internationally recognised laws. However, Dr Wright observes, Māori do not yet enjoy similar protections in New Zealand or on the international stage. Place branding is one step towards distinctive and defendable Māori food propositions.

In the second part of her research, Dr Wright explored the branding of Māori food and beverage packaging with findings showing that place branding is currently used widely by Māori enterprises. This included the use of te reo Māori, cultural expressions and genealogical identification with particular regions.

A third part of her research explored perceptions and preferences of New Zealand and Singapore consumers. She used a means-end chain laddering interview technique, which assists researchers to understand how consumers mentally connect a product’s attributes to themselves, from both functional and psychosocial perspectives, and ultimately to their personal values.

The use of te reo Māori was perceived positively by both groups of consumers, because it was linked to values of social cohesion and protection of culture. However, more conventional place brand statements about ‘New Zealand’ fared more negatively. Those both in Singapore and New Zealand felt it was ‘cynical’ and lacked specificity.

Overall, Dr Wright’s thesis presented three key findings – plant-based future foods are relevant to Māori on multiple levels; Māori future foods can be enabled through place branding; and Māori place branding can support enterprise development and the protection of Māori rights and cultural property.

“These findings have implications for advancing Māori future foods and for growing the research and practice of decolonial Māori and indigenous place branding,” she says, adding that as a result there is now a deeper understanding of how Māori aspirations can shape and benefit from future food systems.

In her thesis she also questions the ongoing appropriation of Māori culture by non-Māori to advance broader agricultural and economic agendas and offers a transdisciplinary approach, addressing gaps at the intersection of Māori enterprise, future foods, indigenous place branding, and consumption studies.

Dr Wright is now working as a researcher and post-doctoral fellow at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland and Ōtākau Whakaihu Waka University of Otago on two HRC-funded projects examining indigenous climate justice in policy and Māori food sovereignty.

Link to more information about Feast here.