Rising butter and grocery prices hit Rotorua bakery, food rescue

Guidough's Bakery in Rotorua makes everything from fresh bread to doughnuts, hot pies to sweet pastries, but owner Mel Bachmann has had to adapt to surging butter prices.
'We use butter for everything, all of our sweet baking, also in our savoury, and there's no replacement,' she said.
Bachmann told the Rotorua Daily Post that butter prices were 'crazy' – once $4 per block, some prices were up to $12.
'The best price we can get at the moment is about $9, but it will go up.
'We're not going to compromise on flavour and quality, so we're not, and we will not use substitutes because it's going to ruin the quality.'
She said the margins were a lot slimmer than people imagined.
'If we do put prices up, it's not because we're making a tonne of money from it, it's just simply to cover the costs of all these crazy increases.
'Most people do understand, but there are still some that will be outraged that things have gone up and keep going up, but I don't think that's targeted towards us.'
Bachmann said Guidoughs had put prices up slightly to reflect higher ingredient costs.
'It's hard for everyone and people are already struggling so much with the cost of living, so we don't want bakery food to be something that people can't afford any more.
'We want this to be for everybody so they can have a special treat, and we're very mindful of people's tight budgets.'
Westpac economist Paul Clark told the NZ Herald in early May that retail prices for butter generally moved in line with export prices and it was likely prices would 'ratchet higher in coming months'.
The Rotorua Daily Post looked at the cheapest options for some common grocery foods at three Rotorua supermarkets.
At the time of writing, Pak'nSave Rotorua sold a 500g of Pams Pure Butter for $8.29. The same product retailed for $8.79 at New World Westend. Woolworths Rotorua retailed a 500g Woolworths Salted Butter for $8.49.
A 2-litre Pam's Milk from Pak'nSave Rotorua was $4.40, it was $4.48 at New World Westend and at Woolworths Rotorua, a 2-litre Woolworths standard bottle was $4.43.
The price of a standard loaf of white bread was similar across the board.
Pams Value White Toast Fresh Sliced Bread retailed for $1.39 at Pak'nSave, $1.49 at New World and Woolworths sold its Essentials Sliced Bread White for $1.49.
Pam's 1kg of Edam cheese, retailing for $12.29 at Pak'nSave, was $13.29 at New World and at Woolworths, a 1kg block of Everyday cheddar cheese retailed for $12.49.
Foodstuffs, which operates Pak'nSave and New World, reported a 2.8% year-on-year rise in retail prices for goods in its food price inflation basket.
Foodstuffs said the business was 'very aware' of the pressure food prices placed on households.
'We're committed to continuing to support our customers and communities through what remains a challenging time for many.'
Woolworths New Zealand said it was working 'even harder' to give customers good value and a 'fantastic' shopping experience.
'Customers are facing continued cost-of-living pressures, and delivering value is a top priority of ours.'
A non-profit food rescue service was also struggling to source enough food to meet demand.
Julie King, manager at Love Soup Rotorua, told the Rotorua Daily Post she wished it could do more, but could not provide for all because of limited resources.
'Higher food prices mean more people are turning to Love Soup for support, while at the same time it's getting harder for us to source food,' King said.
'We're seeing growing demand at our community pop-ups, especially from families struggling to keep up with rising grocery costs.'
Each pop-up attracted 100 to 400 people.
King said the food items most in demand or hardest to supply were meat and non-perishables.
'We have a walk-in freezer, but it's full of frozen bread and vegetables; we're blessed to have those.
'We're having to do more with less, but we're committed to making sure no good food goes to waste and no one goes hungry.'
She said people were sharing their experiences and how they were going without.
'It's a struggle for them and us, and it can be disheartening to see how real the struggle is out there.'

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Otago Daily Times

4 days ago

• Otago Daily Times

Apprentice butcher wins regional heat

Riley Hall has gone from being brought up in a vegetarian household to being Otago's top apprentice butcher. The 23-year-old, who works at Gardens New World in North East Valley, won the ANZCO Foods Butcher Apprentice lower South Island regional heat last Friday and earned a spot in the national final in Auckland on August 14. Growing up with a mother who did not eat meat, he never really planned on becoming a butcher, but then he took a gap year to live with his father in Canada and took a job as a butcher in a local supermarket, Mr Hall said. "It was the only free position available." He said he fell in love with all aspects of cutting, marinating and presenting meat to customers. His favourite cut of meat was a porterhouse steak. "That was the first steak I ever had. "I got a real marbled one at work, took it home, fried it up the first time and it can't get better than that for me." He went from eating little meat to eating it more often so he could better instruct people how to prepare it. Mr Hall said he loved the physical aspect of being a butcher. "I'm a kinaesthetic learner so if someone shows me how to do something, I can get in there and get better at it." He was excited about what the future held for him whether that was continuing working at the supermarket butchery, working for a private butchery or opening a home-kill butchering business. For the time being, he was enjoying working at New World because it offered him a lot of opportunity. He would complete his apprenticeship in November. Winning the national apprenticeship competition would mean a lot to him because it drove him to have pride in his work, he said. "Competition just lets you add your creative flavours." Arrowtown butchery R.M Prime Produce butcher William Fletcher took top honours in the Pact Packaging Young Butcher category. He started his apprenticeship in 2020 and has been a qualified butcher for a year and a-half. He said it felt great to compete for the first time and be rewarded for his hard work and preparation. Each competitor took part in a demanding two-hour cutting challenge, showcasing their technique, creativity and speed in pursuit of a spot in the national final. Both Mr Hall and Mr Fletcher received a $150 cash prize and a trophy. Head judge Peter Martin said the standard in the South Island was exceptionally high.

RNZ News

4 days ago

• RNZ News

How it happened: Fire at New World supermarket in Auckland's Freemans Bay

A fire at a central Auckland supermarket under renovation has been contained but is still not out. Foodstuffs North Island CEO Chris Quin says the fire at the New World on College Hill was a significant event. He says it started in a rebuild area but could not confirm the cause. He says the store is a very important location for Foodstuffs. He says the value of stock loss is unknown but staff will be looked after and most customers have been reunited with their undamaged cars. There were 20 fire trucks at the peak of the blaze, which started in the mezzanine roof space and spread inside to aisles. Fire and Emergency says the blaze is under control and crews remain at the scene dampening down hotspots. Read our liveblog to see how the day unfolded Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

Otago Daily Times

6 days ago

• Otago Daily Times

Large retailers support facial recognition technology in stores

By Phil Pennington of RNZ The heads of a dozen of the largest retailers and telcos in the country have come out in strong support of using facial recognition technology in their stores. This follows the Privacy Commissioner giving a "cautious tick" to a trial in New World and Pak'nSave supermarkets. "The undersigned major New Zealand retailers strongly support the use of fair and accurate technology to protect our workers and customers," said a statement at industry group Retail NZ's website. Without saying when they might start using it, they stated they would work now to develop "best practice". "We recognise that technology must be used in a fair and accurate way." The letter was signed by the heads of Briscoes and Rebel Sport, Bunnings and Mitre 10, Michael Hill Jewellers, Farmers and The Warehouse, the two Foodstuffs supermarket groups in the two islands as well as rival Woolworths, and telcos One NZ and Spark. Concern lingers over privacy of shoppers Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster had said his report was "not a green light for more general use of FRT" (facial recognition technology). "However, we recognise the importance of the issue for many businesses." The trial let other businesses ask themselves the right questions about whether to use FRT and in what ways to protect privacy, Webster said. There were significant caveats. "While the percentage of misidentifications may be small, rolling FRT out at scale would mean that large numbers of people would be misidentified." Foodstuffs North Island's own research suggested 900 shoppers a year could be misidentified in its stores alone. The commissioner suggested raising the algorithm accuracy from 90 percent to 92.5 percent, among other measures. A Māori Reference Panel set up at the end of 2024 told the commissioner it opposed FRT's use in supermarkets. This was "given the vital role of supermarkets in providing access to food, the current supermarket duopoly which means there are limited alternative options for people who are barred from entry, and the concern that the whole population of Aotearoa will be subjected to surveillance in supermarkets in order to reduce instances of harmful behaviour by a small minority of customers". How does it work? Retail NZ's Carolyn Young said for someone to be on the watchlist, they had to have offended and/or been abusive and/or aggressive in store and trespassed. If someone was trespassed from a retail environment, they currently are not able to return to that store for two years. "What we know in retail is that recidivous offending is very high - between 35-50 percent (depending on the sector) of offending is done by recidivous offending. "So we know that even though someone has been trespassed, they continue to come back into store," Young said. "FRT will enable stores to identify these individuals as they enter store to ensure that the store is safe for staff and customers. "FRT does not enable customers to be monitored. It takes an image of people as they enter the store and if they are not on the watchlist, then they are deleted immediately. "FRT does not provide ongoing monitoring throughout the store, just one photo/image as someone enters." The big-store signatories said they acknowledged the commissioner's oversight, and Foodstuffs for leading the way with its trial. "The use of FRT in the right settings with the right controls will provide positive benefits and outcomes for customers, retailers and workers, while not impeding on the privacy of New Zealanders. "The vast majority of customers will be able to go about their business as usual and will in fact be safer in those stores where FRT is used," the Retail NZ statement said. Webster also stressed it would be "highly desirable" to do training of the FRT algorithms on New Zealanders' faces, by consent, to cut down the risk of bias and inaccuracy. Very limited such testing by the Department of Internal Affairs last year found the imported tech it is currently using was accurate. What happens overseas? Many multiple FRT systems are on offer that return different rates of accuracy in independent tests by the US-based benchmarking agency. In Australia, Bunnings had been in a legal fight with a watchdog that asserted its facial recognition there impinged on people's privacy. Reports of the tech being used at supermarkets in an isolated way in New Zealand date back to at least 2018. Researchers foresaw the tech spread in 2021. "Private sector use of FRT-enabled surveillance is likely to increase, particularly in the retail sector, especially as these services come 'baked-in' to vendor offerings," their landmark report for police said. That contributed to police deciding not to use FRT on live camera feeds, a constraint they say they have stuck with till now. In Britain, the tech's spread, for example in airports and shopping centres, prompted the government's biometrics ethics group in 2021 to recommend oversight by an independent ethics group including of collaborative FRT use between retail and police. Young said Britain was a long way ahead of New Zealand in terms of the implementation of FRT and had used CCTV actively in the community for many years. Here, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) would carry out the role of oversight, she said. "It may be in the future that there is a need for another regulatory body to do this work, but while we are in our infancy of implementation and the OPC has been very clear about how it is to be rolled out, we believe that the parameters for implementation are very clear." The Privacy Commissioner's report does not contain a similar recommendation. It mentioned Foodstuffs auditing how it compiled watchlists of people for the camera-software to look out for, but not that this should be independent. The signed Retail NZ statement did not mention independent overview. Australia's privacy regulator signalled in March it would be proactive in regulating biometric information. Biometrics include face, fingerprint and iris - unique identifiers of who a person is. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner - it had taken on Bunnings, which was appealing - put this in a wider frame: "Our research told us that more than a quarter of Australians feel that facial recognition technology is one of the biggest privacy risks faced today, and only three percent of Australians think it's fair and reasonable for retailers to require their biometric information when accessing their services". "Thinking about what the law permits, but also what the community would expect" was critical.