Kai Whakaora
Kai Whakaora — life-giving food — began in 2019, when a small group of food-conscious locals in Heretaunga gathered around a vision shared by Hapi Café director Gretta Carney: an indigenous cooperative food economy built on kaupapa Māori principles of food sovereignty. Guided by food-sovereignty researcher Dr Jessica Hutchings and the Kai Ora framework developed with Associate Professor Jo Smith, the founding group - the team of researchers carried out more than thirty interviews with mana whenua across Te Matau-a-Māui, gathering kōrero on how whānau grow, gather, share, and understand kai.
The brief was to take that research and shape it into a publication capable of carrying the vision to whānau, funders, and community stakeholders. Structured around six kaupapa — Te Whataroa, Hua Parakore, Te Hononga ki te Whenua, Tohatoha ki te Tangata, Ringatuku, and Kai Ora — the document weaves academic framing directly into the voices of the people interviewed: elders, growers, fishers, home cooks, each holding a piece of the argument for a self-reliant, circular Māori food economy in Heretaunga.
For Ngāhiwi Tomoana, trade was never just about the product moving from one hand to another — it carried "language, systems and tikanga" with it, the whole value chain riding alongside.
Ko te kai whakaora he hua no te whenua. Let food from the land reset and restore.
