Pacific flavours

The event is the Southern Hemisphere’s leading trade exhibition for the food, hospitality, and retail industries to be held from September 11-14 this year.

As part of Pacific Trade Invest (PTI) Australia’s ‘Pacific Showcase’ stand, the eight producers selected to partake in the exhibition include Papua New Guinea’s Devine Management Services and Frangipani Foods, Fiji’s Nama Cuisine, Fiji Kava, Green Gold Kava and Pacific Premium, and Solomon Islands’ SolTuna and Kokonut Pacific Solomon Islands (KSPI).

The recently opened Kai Pasifika restaurant is the first Pacific cuisine restaurant to be established in New Zealand. While it aims to celebrate traditional Pacific foods, it also wants to change existing misconceptions about them.

The restaurant is a dream come true for celebrity chef Robert Oliver who has won top awards at the Gourmand World Cookbook awards for his material on Pacific cuisine.

Mr Oliver said he has had to challenge perceptions around Pacific foods being inferior.

"Pacific people know better and I know better," he said