Wakame, Oat Lattes, Fruit Powder Bling and A Quiet Plant-Based Rebellion at Fine Food NZ

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Let’s not kid ourselves Fine Food NZ isn’t exactly a plant-based paradise. It’s still packed with slicers, salami, and slab cakes large enough to feed a rugby team. But tucked between the pastry lamination demos and the lamb-stuffed samosas is a quiet rebellion worth paying attention to. This year, a handful of producers have slipped past the usual clichés and delivered something the new food world desperately needs in the form of plant-forward products with actual bite, purpose, and global shelf appeal.

Source: Fine Food NZ

Start with Exotica New Zealand, who’ve clearly come to play. Their freeze-dried powders—dragon fruit, strawberry, durian, aren’t just functional, they’re stunning. With bright colours, antioxidant cred, and clean-label credentials (vegan, halal, preservative-free), these tropical packets of joy are designed to do what many ‘superfoods’ fail to and that's actually taste good while standing out in a crowded wellness aisle. Their Susu Mango snack and Lemongrass Cubes back it up with bite-sized innovation retail-ready, travel-friendly, and built for export. They’re not trying to be meat, or milk, or guilt-free anything, they just are.

And then there’s oat milk. Yes, again. But realFOODS has added a fresh twist with a fully barista-grade trio - organic oat, soy, and coconut, all designed to perform like a dream under steam. The war for the café counter is far from over, and this local entrant seems ready to go froth-for-froth with the Oatlys of the world, minus the carbon shipping miles and overpriced marketing teams. There’s something refreshing about a brand wanting to do plant milk well, without the startup ego.

Source: Various - Top Left - RealFoods Oat Milk - Southern Clams Wakame Seaweed - Exotica Dried Mango - Kiwi Sorbet - Weave Cacao - Sunny Hills Sweet Potato Crisps - Spicecraft Pimped Pepper

Meanwhile, wild-harvested wakame from Southern Clams may not scream innovation to the untrained eye, but this seaweed is a quiet game-changer. Hand-graded, air-dried, and full of potential, it’s the kind of regenerative ocean food ticking every box from carbon sequestration to culinary versatility. If the foodservice sector finally wakes up to the umami sitting on its own coastline, this could be the year it slips into mainstream menus.

Snacks weren’t left behind either. Sunny Hill’s sweet potato chips are a rare example of health claims that don’t feel like a marketing exercise. Natural, gluten-free, and bright with beta-carotene, they taste like someone actually cared about the crunch. No fake cheese dust, no puffed filler, just sweet potato doing what it does best, delivering comfort with conscience.

Elsewhere, the quiet achievers kept showing up. Kiwi Sorbet impressed with green, gold, and red versions of its fruit-forward frozen treats, an ode to NZ's national berry that leans into texture as much as tang. And Weave Cacao dropped what might be the most overlooked innovation of the show, a Pacific-grown, dairy-free couverture chocolate that actually melts like the real thing. It’s ethical, elegant, and engineered for chefs who don’t want compromise on the plating line.

Even the spice aisle had something to say, thanks to Spicecraft’s Pimped Pepper. A cheeky, gluten-free seasoning blend made in New Zealand, it’s the kind of zero-barrier pantry addition that turns a casual buyer into a loyalist. Once it’s on your avo toast, it’s never coming off.

So what can you expect from this year’s Fine Food NZ? No one’s shouting plant-based from the rooftops, but a few are quietly changing the game. These are the brands rethinking what New Zealand can grow, preserve, and package with flair. And while the heavy equipment and heritage brands still dominate the floorplan, the pulse of the future is here, beating inside fruit powder sachets, kelp bags, and oat-frothed lattes. We’ll take that over another deep fryer any day.

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