Over the past six months the Planalytics team has been lucky enough to support local chef Ant North develop and roll out The Pantry Challenge, a community project intended to boost inspiration in the kitchen using ingredients commonly found in donated food parcels and the kitchen pantry. Six months, fourteen videos, and a stack of recipe cards later, we are ready to reflect on The Pantry Challenge journey.

During Level 4 of New Zealand’s lockdown response to COVID-19, national and local media shone a light on the issue of food insecurity and how stressful food can be for families. From his bubble in Featherston, chef and caterer, Ant North, started to think about how he could use his cooking skills to help those in his community experiencing food need and The Pantry Challenge was born.

What is The Pantry Challenge?

Ant created a series of cooking videos demonstrating how to create quick, easy, and nutritious meals using common food parcel ingredients. These videos were then published on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Each video was accompanied by a recipe card included in food parcels donated from foodbanks in South Wairarapa and Carterton. The intention was for people who receive donated food parcels, or those who may be lacking inspiration in the kitchen, to access the videos and recipe cards and cook up a storm. The project attracted great support from the Featherston (South Wairarapa) Foodbank; community-led development agencies Ka Pai Carterton and Fab Feathy; and local printers, Lamb-Peters Print.

The Videos

Ant created a series of 14 cooking videos for The Pantry Challenge, from the humble omelette to the more ambitious gnocchi. In each video, Ant shared easy-to-follow recipes using basic ingredients, as well as tips and tricks to boost confidence in the kitchen.

Planalytics’ team members, Lucy Cooper and Tiff North, took turns behind the camera and Tiff used her design skills to create title slides and recipe cards for the videos. You can find the whole collection here on YouTube, or on Ant’s or Planalytics’ Facebook pages. The videos were published on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook between July and December 2020.

The Recipe Cards

Each video was accompanied by a recipe card designed free of charge by Tiff North, a Visual Journalist at Planalytics. Leading up to Christmas and into 2021, these recipe cards, printed on durable card by Lamb-Peters Print, will be included in food parcels at the South Wairarapa and Carterton Foodbanks. Hopefully, this will give people receiving food parcels a little bit of aroha and support to create simple, nutritious meals the whole whānau can enjoy. The QR code on the recipe cards provides an easy link through to the videos on YouTube if further advice on the recipe was needed.

Recipe cards like this will be printed to accompany each of the 14 videos. They will be printed on durable card and placed in food parcels in South Wairarapa and Carterton.

What did we learn?

Ant North and the Planalytics’ team learnt a lot about food insecurity, foodbank operations, and video and recipe production over the six-month course of The Pantry Challenge. We have listed some of these findings below and would be interested to hear your reflections on The Pantry Challenge also!

There are local community gardens in Martinborough, Carterton, and Masterton, and some contribute fresh veggies to their local foodbanks. These gardens are developed and run by volunteers, and some host free gardening workshops on topics such as seed raising and seed saving. If you are interested in volunteering, click on the links above and get in touch.
There are foodbanks in Featherston, Carterton, Martinborough, and Masterton providing food parcels to those in need in our local communities. They are also run by volunteers. If you, or somebody you know, is experiencing food need, then contact your local foodbank to find out their opening times.
Waiwaste is Wairarapa’s main food rescue agency. Waiwaste collects food destined to be thrown away, that is good enough to eat but not good enough to sell. It then redistributes rescued food to local community organisations, including local foodbanks, for use.
Waiwaste, and food rescue agencies across New Zealand, are supported by the Aotearoa Food Rescue Alliance (AFRA). This is a new agency, started in October this year, and supports food rescue organisations through capacity building, encouraging best practice, enhancing collaboration, and advocating for the interests of the food rescue sector in Aotearoa.
The eggs video has been the most popular on YouTube to date. This may indicate that people aren’t as confident with eggs as with some other ingredients, or that eggs are a popular, easy-to-access ingredient.
Ant’s mantra, ‘taste, season, taste!’ is an incredibly useful one for the kitchen, and can help turn an okay meal into a really tasty meal.
We learned in the stir-fried rice recipe that some flowers are edible. They are not only tasty but also add a touch of glamour to your evening meal.
iMovie is easy and fun to use! Importing slides designed by Tiff in PowerPoint and using music from YouTube’s free audio library helped create a polished and consistent look to the videos across the series.
Our local Wairarapa community is active and engaged, and were very supportive of The Pantry Challenge. This included the Ka Pai SOUP fundraising event held in July 2020, and throughout the project’s development and growth.

The thank you’s!

We would like to say a huge thank you to the following people, groups, and businesses for their support of The Pantry Challenge project over what has been a very challenging year for everyone across Aotearoa:

Indigo Freya, Featherston (South Wairarapa) Foodbank’s coordinator, who endorsed the project and provided Ant with a list of common food parcel items.
Community-led development partnership Ka Pai Carterton and Featherston’s Own Charitable Trust for their support and grants towards meeting the cost of printing the recipe cards.
WaiWaste for supporting Ant’s funding applications to Ka Pai Carterton and Featherston’s Own Charitable Trust.
Lamb-Peters Print for the great rate on the printing costs, meaning Ant has been able to print enough recipe cards to go in food parcels across South Wairarapa, Carterton, and beyond.
Featherston Community Centre for allowing us to cook up a storm at their premises, including a lot of dishes involving eggs!
Ngahere O Te Ora Haumanu Community Garden Carterton for allowing us to create stir-fried rice and potato gnocchi in their stunning gardens.
And finally, Planalytics’ management for supporting the project and endorsing the use of staff time on The Pantry Challenge free of charge.

What next?

At Planalytics, we are always keen to understand the impact (or not!) of our project work. This helps us to design more effective projects in the future. Over the coming months, we will monitor the impact of The Pantry Challenge by tracking the viewing statistics of the YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook videos to understand how many people are watching them.

We will also keep an open dialogue with local foodbanks to find out how the recipes have been received by the community. Given our interest in local food security, we’ll also stay involved in conversations about the topic, and explore opportunities to improve our understanding of food insecurity in Wairarapa and the potential for sustainable, long-lasting solutions.

Thank you to everyone who has watched, shared, and commented on the videos, Facebook posts, and LinkedIn articles about this project! We would love it if you continued to share these resources among your networks. If you have a food security story or thoughts to share, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We appreciate your input.

Naku te rourou nau te rourou ka ora ai te iwi: With your basket and my basket the people will live.