Old bread turned into cake mix
One of the most perilous messages for the online industry is found in the classic Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams.
The 1989 film features an Iowa wheat farmer who hears a voice saying ‘‘if you build it, they will come’’. In his case it means chopping down his wheatfield and building a baseball pitch to lure back a team of ghost ballplayers from the 1930s.
Sadly, ‘‘if you build it, they will come’’ tends to be the mantra of many a (failed) internet entrepreneur. Bereft of actual data or empirical insights, they risk everything on a hare-brained scheme which they think will be so irresistible that everyone will use it.
In 99.99% of times it isn’t, and they don’t, and the entrepreneur goes down the gurgler.
From early days at Trade Me, through to later stints at Timely, Serato and vWork, I’ve leaned the other way. I’ve always found databased is the key to progress. Give me fact, not opinion.
Or as Amy Webb, futurist guru, phrases it – it’s about identifying signals and patterns of facts in the white noise of the market.
All of this came to mind last weekend as I watched the incredible finish to the 2022 Women’s Rugby World Cup final. An event held against a background of tremendous white noise.
Standing back a bit, I couldn’t help but notice what I reckon were some pretty interesting datapoints surrounding what was easily the best game of rugger we’ve seen in the last decade.
The first datapoint was the spontaneous waiata that Black Fern Ruby Tui kicked off following a post-match interview at Eden Park.
Sensing the mood of the crowd, she grabbed the microphone from the reporter and jumped into a spine-tingling rendition of Tū tira
Mai Ngā Iwi, the waiata that mokopuna learn at primary school.
What was palpable, though, was not just her chutzpah in leading the stadium of 42,000, but rather the way they responded. It was truly a magical moment as the crowd (which tended towards the older and whiter) responded en masse and in volume to Tui.
Hell, it wasn’t that long ago that the only waiata that most Kiwis knew was the title of the Split Enz album and the best they could haltingly manage was a bedraggled version of God Defend New Zealand.
But here was a Mt Eden crowd whose te reo was pitch perfect.
The second datapoint was how the event managed to smash all the behavioural myths surrounding women’s sport. You know, the ones saying no-one wants to watch it live or onscreen, or has any interest in following women’s sport online.
The pool play for the event had around three times the live attendance of the 2017 Women’s Rugby World Cup. The opening weekend viewership of the Kiwi game was around 600,000 domestically. Meanwhile, the number of online followers was more than double that of the previous tournament.
The third datapoint was Tui gifting her Rugby World Cup medal to Lucia, a young leukaemia survivor whom she had met the week before, and was in the crowd.
But unlike All Black Sonny Bill Williams’ medal gesture at the 2015 Rugby World Cup, her generosity was off-camera.
Such altruism in the glare of world-class competitive sport is as alarming as it is welcome.
The last datapoint for me occurred when I stopped in a small village not far out of Helensville. I popped in on Sunday morning to buy the paper and a pie, and a rather grizzled old Pā kehā fellow was sitting behind the counter re-watching the highlights of the previous evening’s game.
‘‘By Christ those women could teach the All Blacks a thing or two about rugby – look at how they pulled off that try from a rolling maul,’’ he said as he rubbed his snow-white short back and sides.
I tried to nod sagely, not really knowing a rolling maul from my elbow.
‘‘And check out that final score from Leti-I’iga and Fluhler, I must have replayed it a dozen times now, and it just gets better every time.’’
Hearing the praise and the passion for women’s rugby and our winning side coming from an old white male in the boonies, got me thinking about the evolution of our national identity.
Way back in 1939, Frank Sargeson wrote The making of a New Zealander, an awkward story of a migrant trying to pin down exactly what made up the New Zealand psyche, and the result being brutish and awkward.
A few decades later, Gordon McLauchlan wrote The
Passionless People, where he opines that Kiwis are smiling zombies who are lazy, smug, racist and prone to moaning.
To me, the four datapoints surrounding last Saturday’s game point to a different national identity. One that is multicultural, passionate and generous. The sort of place I’d like my kids to grow up in.
Meanwhile, I can’t help but think the path to last Saturday’s victory would make a great movie.
But unlike Field of Dreams, it wouldn’t be about a bunch of ghosts living in a wheatfield.
This one would be based on fact, flesh and bone. And a women’s rugby team who changed the way we looked at ourselves.
Mike O’Donnell is a professional director, writer and strategy adviser, and a regular opinion contributor.
Apartnership between Countdown supermarkets and a food ‘‘rescue’’ company has resulted in 800kg of old bread being turned into cake mix.
The supermarket has struck a deal with Rescued, which takes surplus food that is still edible but unable to be sold, and ‘‘upcycles’’ it into a different form.
Diane Stanbra, founder of Rescued, said it took in-store bakery white bread products from two Countdown stores that had not been collected by other food charities.
The bread was then turned into vanilla, chocolate, lemon and gin botanicals and savoury baking mixes, as well as breadcrumbs. The baking mixes are sold at Countdown.
‘‘We’ve rescued and processed over 800kg of bread from Countdown to date. As we scale we will increase our scope to rescue and upcycle the grain breads and other baked goods, we’ve got ideas for all of it,’’ Stanbra said.
New Zealanders waste more bread than any other food item, according to waste-minimisation organisation Love Food Hate Waste. About 20 million loaves end up in our landfills each year.
Rescued also collects from George Weston Foods, which makes Tip Top and Ploughmans, as well as other brands.
‘‘This is used mainly for our food service range including baking mixes, giving caterers and hospitality businesses an avenue to support upcycled food and use their own surplus ingredients,’’ Stanbra said.
Steve Mills, Countdown commercial director, packaged, said Rescued had been part of its business accelerator Kete, a 12-month ‘‘toolbox of support’’ valued at up to $250,000 per business, to empower small businesses and help them realise their potential at Countdown.
‘‘Our absolute priority is to avoid creating food waste in the first place, but the nature of fresh food and serving over three million customers a week, does mean that some level of waste is inevitable – particularly with short shelf life products like bread and other baked goods,’’ he said.
Countdown has partnerships with more than 25 food rescue organisations to divert bread and other baked goods that it can no longer sell but are still edible, to people in need. It hopes to expand the programme over the coming months.