Well people, I suppose the time had to come where I had to present myself so those people out there in cyberspace can see the "hardworking" side of āria foods at its best.

Yes, we sold more products today and it looks like more and more people who were unaware that the fabulous Awazibi Maple Syrup was available here in Ōtaki, are now dedicated followers.

Even sold our first 'smoked manuka flaky Aotearoa sea salt' product.  






Now imagine this; just finished dinner and now to adjourn to the sitting room with a plate of 2 scoops of Vanilla ice-cream, with a table-spoon of Cognac Brandy drizzled over the ice-cream, and to top it off with a table-spoon of Awazibi Maple Syrup drizzled over the ice-cream.  You sit down in your favourite lazy-boy seat and take a spoonful of ice-cream...oh! you realise, "OMG, I'm in Maple Syrup heaven". 

Now hold that thought, and think about how disappointed you are because you never called in to the Ōtaki Farmers market, or the Paraparaumu Farmers market to purchase your Awazibi Maple Syrup.

So don't forget.  Next Saturday, "I must purchase my Awazibi Maple Syrup"!!

Here is a very interesting insight into how supermarkets are responding to competition in Canada. Loblaws is one of the big two supermarket chains in Canada. Rather than price cut resulting in the old race to the bottom scenario, they have picked up on the consumer's passion for food. As they put it “It’s almost what people talk about instead of the weather". So they have decided to be part of the conversation, facilitating it and picking up on trends on the fly by analyzing what is being said. We need to understand this approach as producers and tap into these same conversations to ensure we both contribute to and learn from them because we have great stories to tell and products to sell.

Here we go again. We have more indigenous products for sale from Aotearoa New Zealand and Canada. From the New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute (NZMACI) in Rotorua, the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand, are products form The Storehouse. These are some bottled dressings made from indigenous plants, like Kawakawa and other ingredients, alongside seasoning pouches, especially delicious on BBQ meats, for stews and even on roast chicken.  From Hayden Pohio and his great company Boosta, we have manuka fueled energy and snack bars. There are no preservatives or additives in these products. We also have an indigenous wild rice from Canada too.

Here is some views of our neighbours on market day.  Now who is that dude?

Well folks, this is the other half of the business partnership, Graeme Everton, for the āria foods brand, the reason why we exist, to provide indigenous products to those people who love good food and good eating.

A view of the range of beautiful food products produced by the owner, Dragos, on his property for this market venue. There are, breads, relishes, wine, spreads, and other delicacies.

Hi all you Awazibi maple syrup lovers.  As you can see, we are located on the other side from the previous stall.  We also have two product shelve-stands operating.  Note the laptop on the table too. That young fella standing there looking like he's ready to sell refrigerators to the inhabitants of the North Pole regions, is my youngest son, Wiremu.  He's giving dad a helping-hand.  In fact, he sold a Awazibi maple syrup while I was still getting organised.

The good news for the day was we sold 15 Awazibi maple syrup to potentially future syrup lovers who will keep returning to re-supply their kitchens with their favourite syrup.  Colleague took another 5 Awazibi maple syrup units to sell in the South Island of our beautiful country, New Zealand Aotearoa.  Therefore, we reached our target of 20 units for the day.  So, don't forget Awazibi maple syrup lovers, you can order your syrup online.

For those who have purchased our Awazibi maple syrup, I hope you are enjoying this absolutely delicious "nectar of the gods", and had made your day, that much more happy.  Let's meet again next week people.

Well, all you maple syrup lovers out there.  As you can see we have my family involved in helping to promote this absolutely beautiful indigenous product.

We had another successful market day with 11 Awazibi maple syrup sold to lovers of maple syrup, who had never tasted this particular syrup.  However, they certainly changed their minds once they had the taste of Awazibi maple syrup.

Since the first market day, we now have an interested party from our capital city, Wellington on the west coast of New Zealand.  They are currently discussing with their company owners and management about our Awazibi maple syrup to purchase and stock in their outlets.  We are waiting on a response to meet with them.  We also have a potential connection with another outlet in Paraparaumu, about 23 kilometres south of Ōtaki on the west coast of New Zealand.  Things are looking good for this genuine indigenous product.

So syrup lovers, continue to purchase your Awazibi maple syrup and keep those taste buds happy and your food even more delicious. Enjoy!!

Tom and team did our second Otaki Market and it must be approaching spring as the day was fine and more people were coming out of their warm homes to see what was happening. You will see us as a regular fixture at the market so come on by, talk to us about what you would like to see us sell and of course taste our products.

Happy to report that we officially launched Awazibi Maple Syrup in Aotearoa/New Zealand at the Otaki Farmers Market on Saturday the 9th. Tom Winitana, co-director on FirstTree Growing, is managing sales and marketing of āria foods products. We are starting at Farmers Markets as these are great places to get direct feedback form the buyers and then moving into a select number of stores next month. Over the summer you will get to see us at markets in Otaki, Palmerston North, Paraparaumu and Wellington. And if you aren't at one of these venues you can always buy online at our online store on the āria foods website. In the next month we will be adding new products like Smoked Aotearoa Sea Salt, so keep an eye out for them. And if you have any ideas for products you would like to see at our stalls let us know and we will see what we can do. Lastly would like to thank all those who have helped us get to this point so far including Petra my partner, Linda and Chief Gilbert Whiteduck, my daughter Moana and moko Arama and a whole list more.

So what do I think of this announcement by the Māori Party in response to the passing of legislation which finally stopped the appalling treatment of foreign workers on chartered fishing boats.  I don't often agree with the NZ Government but in this case I say good on them for firstly passing the legislation and secondly ignoring the bleating of Iwi leaders who think they can some how justify opposition to these changes.  Let me be clear.  There isn't any room for ambiguity here.  The exploitation of others in the pursuit of more profit isn't right no matter how you dress it up.  In a world where hearing about the poor conduct of business is only a tweet away how do you think the consumer will react to a headline saying “Māori want to keep status quo to exploit cheap foreign labour on fishing boats”.  Māori Inc. is the loser if Māori industry becomes associated with any form of bad practice.  Let's remind these leaders that there isn't any room in our tikanga for disrespecting our manuhiri.