Marmite

Oh no, crisis - the NZ Marmite stocks are running out!!  How will people cope?  People are stock piling and looking out for themselves, and supermarket shelves are pretty much empty.

Does this ring bells in anyone's heads?  So the Christchurch earthquake has required earthquake strengthening of the old Sanitarium building and this is the only place New Zealand Marmite is currently made.  Now everyone is in panic!

Lets get sensible here!  Do we need Marmite to survive? No!  But it does start you thinking what will happen if supply chains of things we really need are truly disrupted.  

The fact remains the Christchurch earthquake did not do anything other than temporary disruption to supply chains because the rest of the country was unaffected, despite the crazy panic buying of all items from people determine to stock pile and protect there own. Apart from the odd non essential item being missing from supermarket shelves, it was no issue.  

But what say suddenly all ships being food imports to NZ were no longer able to come here (a major strike of shipping unions perhaps).  Could you survive? What if oil prices double, which could occur in less than 5 years and food increases that much in price for imported food? Is there enough NZ or even local to you region food available?  What is essential, what is just nice to have?  How vulnerable are you and your community to the effects of supply chain disruption due to natural disaster, oil price increases or other events?   

What would you feed your dog or cat if the pet food manufacturer in the USA (where most premium brands are made) had a major fire and production as halted? Some of you will have pets that can only eat or will only eat one brand.  This is not at all a dig at buying imported food - what I am suggesting is that all the great R and D that goes into these foods could still take place in a central global location, but surely the recipes could be replicated in each country they are sold - providing jobs, reducing footprint and so forth. 

Taking time to get to know your neighbour and get involved with your community  you can get into a situation where you and the local community can work together and be more self sufficient, leading to increased social connectedness, feelings of worth and more than likely reducing your overall costs while having a degree of self sufficiency.  

One day's harvest from my garden. 

Planting an edible garden is hugely rewarding, and I have been over the last 7 years slowly increasing my gardens edible products, from nothing when we first moved here, to around 30% of the garden now and more to come.  I have done it not out of the drive to be self-sufficient (if I wanted to do that I'd need a bigger plot of land and to dig up the lawn) but because I know what goes into my home grown stuff, I like how it changes through the year and its good for my kids.  Gardening is also good stress relief.  Two of my neighbours have almost totally edible gardens and many in our area now have chickens too.  Of course this isn't the answer at all, but it gets you closer to the answer. 

By the way, if you are sitting on a Marmite stockpile, why not share it round those who missed out in the panic buying!  It's probably partially a marketing stunt by Sanitarium anyway - if nothing had been said the stocks would have lasted longer and they would have been closer to returning to production before it actually ran out.  Now there is all this free marketing promoting the Marmite product.  When it comes back online there will be a huge craving for it and sales of Marmite for Sanitarium will go through the roof!

And while you are out sharing your Marmite stockpile why not head down and check out your local farmers market this weekend!  Great value local produce which can result in really awesome meals in the coming week.  Don't shop with a list - buy what's in season and then come home and decide what you can cook with it!!

Have a great weekend - enjoy the beautiful Autumn.