Inside Leigh Hart's bonkers quest to hand-deliver a SnackaChangi chip to every Kiwi
Imagine one man trudging across New Zealand with a singular, absurd mission: to personally hand-deliver one SnackaChangi chip to each and every one of the country's 5.31 million residents. Not a bag, not a handful, but a singular crisp per person.
That man is Leigh Hart, and his unhinged campaign for SnackaChangi is just as hilarious as it is utterly impractical.
Chatting with Hart about this logistical nightmare, it's clear he's approaching it with the kind of Kiwi grit that might make Sir Edmund Hillary nod approvingly (or more likely take on Everest as the easier mountain to climb).
Hart, known for his comedic antics on Sports Cafe and for spawning the SnackaChangi brand (loosely inspired by a whimsical moment in Bali), is no stranger to bold ideas. 'The chips are pretty good, you know,' he says with a grin. 'We think once you try one, you'll never go back. So why not get one to every Kiwi?'
A noble sentiment perhaps, but the reality is a gloriously chaotic mess.
The plan is to package each single chip in tiny individual packets and physically deliver them door-to-door. Sure enough, Hart quickly realised he'd bitten off more than he could crunch. 'I wish I never started,' he laughs.
The first hurdle? Data. He tried accessing census information, only to find it less reliable than a 1987 telephone directory he scavenged from MOTAT. 'Have you ever tried to find a phone book?' he demands, exasperated. 'Took me two weeks!'
Then there's the sheer scale of it. New Zealand's population is growing faster than Hart can keep up. 'Every time I deliver one, someone else is born,' he says.
His initial alphabetical approach – delivering to an Auckland Smith before jetting to a Dunedin Smythe – was a disaster. 'I'd deliver two chips and spend a day travelling,' he groans. But then switching to a geographical strategy didn't help. 'People don't immigrate alphabetically, and they don't stay put like a census day.' Jolly inconsiderate of them, certainly by Hart's measure.
The result? A comical inequity crisis. Some lucky Kiwis have received multiple chips, while others remain chip-less. 'I've had heated discussions at doorsteps,' Hart confesses. 'A guy wants chips for his wife and kids, but if they're not on my list, I have to plan a return in three weeks.'
It's not an exact science, he concedes, and there can be collateral damage which, as in the above example, Hart has directly encountered. 'When Dad gets a chip but Mum's left in the cold… let's just say there can be familial discontent!'
Hart's record-keeping is as old-school as his tattered telephone directory. He's crossing names off a list and tracking progress on an Auckland billboard that 'clicks over' with each delivery – though he suspects a disconnect between his vision and execution. 'Sometimes the number goes down,' he says, baffled.
Undaunted, the quest rolls on, racking up some impressive wins. As of June 18, he'd delivered a whopping total of 17 chips. For a campaign that launched two days earlier, that's… a start.
The logistics are mind-boggling. Hart's crisscrossing the country on motorbikes, steam trains, and anything else he can commandeer, meeting 'real Kiwis' along the way. 'I've been on a journey of personal discovery,' he says. 'To find myself, I need to lose myself – and maybe lose myself again.'
But the physical toll is real. He's trekked kilometres into the bush only to find empty huts or, worse, learn the intended recipient has passed away. 'I have to take that chip back to the printers, repackage it, new name, reassign it,' he sighs. 'That's not really fully in my skillset.'
Desperate for efficiency, drastic measures are making their way onto his personal whiteboard. 'I might get in an airplane, give a crop-dusting approach a go. Sort of a chip bomber,' he muses. Where history tells us frogs and even fish have occasionally rained down from the heavens, chips are lighter. Offering a better consistency, he nevertheless observes that wind direction could make accuracy a nightmare. 'I could drop them here, and they'll land there – probably on someone who's already had one.'
Logistics may fail Hart, but optimism never does. 'We do these things not because they're easy, but because they're hard,' he says. With a 96% chance of 'something' happening (he won't specify what), Hart's pressing on, fuelled by the hope of connecting with Kiwis and maybe, just maybe, converting a nation to SnackaChangi.
For now, he's back on the road, chip in hand, ready to meet the next Kiwi on his list. We suggest a chip to the moon may be easier.
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