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Bondi Chai

- Alex 1 Comment

There is often so much gloom and doom surrounding Australian industry (food or otherwise) and sometimes it feels very difficult to buy Australian made foods, never mind about the company being Australian owned.

When the press release dropped in the inbox, announcing that Bondi Chai was now available retail my first thought that this was not for me, or Eating Adelaide. The most exotic I get with my tea is matcha and if I’m out I will always drink coffee because cups of tea in cafés are just never the same as the ones you make at home.

However, the word “Australia” was mentioned a few times which made me dig a little deeper. The good news is that Bondi Chai is 100% Australian owned (it’s a privately held company) and 99% of its ingredients are sourced from Australia.

You may be familiar with Bondi Chai from café menus but you may not know that in April this year it became available retail. Packs of eight single serve sachets are available from Woolworths for $6.99. It comes in two flavours: club cinnamon and vanilla honey.

Coopers Sparkling Ale Takes Out Trophy

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Coopers Sparkling Ale
photo by Bernt Rostad (flickr)

The Australian International Beer Awards took place in Melbourne last week and our own Coopers Sparkling Ale, which has been in production almost continuously since the 1860s, took out the trophy for Best Australian Style Pale Ale.

The beer also won a gold medal in the draught beer section and a silver medal for packaging.

The awards had almost 1500 entries, from 277 exhibitors and almost half were from overseas.

No excuse for buying imports now!

March Against Monsanto

- Alex Leave a comment

Food security is going to be one of the big challenges that faces our planet as population grows and distribution of wealth remains unequal. Supply chains are becoming longer and more complex, as is food labelling.

This year alone we have seen horse meat labelled as beef being sold in the UK, with a surprising amount of confusion about where the meat might actually have come from. Even more recently, a huge number of arrests were made in China in relation to rat and fox meat being sold for human consumption, labelled as mutton or beef.

These incidents demonstrate how important it is to be vigilant and how important it is for us as consumers to try to keep the producers honest.

The role of Big Ag (Agriculture) when it comes to feeding the world might be considered contentious. Many people feel uncomfortable with the stranglehold that it seems to be wielding in so many areas. If you are one of those then you may be interested in the forthcoming March Against Monsanto, which is coming up on Saturday 25 May at 11am outside Parliament House.

As regular readers will know this is not a food politics blog, but I suggest that if this sounds like it might be your thing, do some reading and find out if you should head along.

I hope it goes without saying:  play nicely in the comments.