Meet New Zealand’s Outstanding Makers

The growers, makers and producers behind award-winning food and drink.

Featured {Outstanding} Makers

Discover the stories behind Aotearoa’s most inspiring food and drink producers. Meet Your Maker celebrates the people, passion, and provenance behind award-winning products—highlighting the growers, makers, and innovators shaping New Zealand’s food landscape.

Featured
2026 Leefield Station Supreme Champion Monty & Sons
2026 Leefield Station Supreme Champion Monty & Sons

Everyone can agree there’s something quietly satisfying about a good bowl of pasta. The kind that doesn’t need much more than olive oil, salt, and a seat at the table. For this year’s Leefield Station Supreme Champion Monty & Sons Radiatori Pasta simplicity is exactly the point.

Good Chow NZ
Good Chow NZ

For Good Chow recipe mastermind Jenny Yang, food has always been about care - but also, at times, about pressure. Growing up, she watched her mother express love through cooking. Three meals a day, every day, prepared with precision and pride. It was an act of service that held the family together, but it also came at a cost.

A Bit Dressy
A Bit Dressy

Meet Lara Hayes, the multi-award-winning force behind A Bit Dressy, who infuses her gate-to-plate Bay of Islands heritage and Mediterranean expertise into premium, small-batch olive oil dressings and nourishing bone broths.

More {Outstanding} Makers

Nicola McConnell Nicola McConnell

Good Chow NZ

For Good Chow recipe mastermind Jenny Yang, food has always been about care - but also, at times, about pressure. Growing up, she watched her mother express love through cooking. Three meals a day, every day, prepared with precision and pride. It was an act of service that held the family together, but it also came at a cost.

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