Ploughmans Country Grains bread has special te reo Māori packaging to celebrate Te Wiki o te Reo Māori and some fans can’t get enough of it.
Featuring the reo Māori ‘Te Hereumu o Ploughmans’, ‘Ngā Tōpata Tuawhenua’ and ‘Mē ngā tōpata renga nō Te Waipounamu’ - alongside the English translation ‘Ploughmans Bakery Country Grains, with kibbled grains from the South Island’ - the loaves of bread will be presented in the distinctive packaging for two weeks from September 11.
“We understand the value and importance of everyday moments of goodness,” says Mark Bosomworth, the general manager of George Weston Foods Baking NZ, which makes the bread.
By using te reo Māori during this time, he says the company hopes to draw attention to and encourage conversations around “this taonga, this treasure”.
“If our packaging prompts people to look again at a familiar object and wonder why we have done this, we feel we will have made a small contribution towards understanding and protecting this important part of our national heritage.”
Several people have left comments on the company’s Facebook page offering encouragement and even urging them to keep the reo Māori as a permanent feature.
“That’s neat - more companies should do this,” one person said.
“Awesome, no need to make it one week a year, keep it like that from here on in,” said another.
Someone even put a plug for a few loaves of Rēwena bread, a popular potato-based Māori cuisine.
“Why don’t ya make a Māori bread.”
For the past two years, the company has been on a journey to improve understanding of Te Āo Māori, through a number of initiatives driven by its bicultural team, Bosomworth says.
“This mahi involves people throughout the organisation incorporating Te Reo Māori in everyday communications and using it to express and reflect our company’s values (safe, courageous, trusting, collaborative) and what they mean to our people.”
The ultimate goal is to treasure and celebrate this unique taonga, he says.
“Our aim is to encourage greater understanding of te āo Māori and use of te reo in everyday life to help preserve and protect one of our official languages and celebrate this taonga as something unique in the culture of Aotearoa New Zealand.”