The Food Show and maybe a little Government help!

Posted: 6/08/2010 3:56:19 p.m.

Well, we’ve had the Auckland Food Show, that long awaited festival. It has been and gone for another year. It’s a hectic time for us, as it is for all the food producers and if you’ve ever done a Food show, or if you’ve ever worked in a busy shop for hours and days on end, you’ll know what hard and rewarding work it is.

I think it’s a wonderful moment when someone tries, perhaps for the first time, then buys the Paul Holmes Extra Virgin Olive Oil. And I think it’s also great when someone says hello and says nice things about something I’ve said or done on the radio or the television and I don’t even mind if these same people don’t buy the oil. Often they tell me they have a bottle at home they’re still using….

It was very interesting though, this last weekend. The crowds were huge but I don’t think we were the only retailers there wondering if the spend was down. Today I find out unemployment has risen to nearly 7% so perhaps people are finding things a little harder. But the fascination with food remains, the fascination with what New Zealand is capable of producing and what we actually are producing.

So many of those smaller producers are crying out for a little funding to help make the leap into slightly bigger territory. I bemoaned the lack of such a lift-up during the course of my Saturday morning radio programme which I did from the Food Show. But then one of my political commentators, John Pagani, came on the programme and berated me for saying for years that governments and government agencies don’t know how to pick winners.

This stopped me in my tracks. It’s true. I always said that. But we’re not talking millions, here. And maybe, just maybe, those companies that keep on keeping on display the basis of a winning streak. Whatever help is provided to small businesses by government agencies, I doubt it is particularly effective. In the end you have to make the leap yourselves, I think. Government agency people might be interested and they may want to help but their lives don’t depend on what you’re doing. In there somewhere lies the problem.

Anyway, it was lots of fun. Meeting the public always is. So is running into the old faces who show up and do the business year after year.

See you at the next show……

Paul