Delivery
The Overall Project
Students digging up Māori potatoes at Parewahawaha
2007 began with potatoes! The class focussed on investigating and comparing different potato products made with urenika. They trialled a variety of recipes such as fried potatoes, mashed potatoes, potato salad and potato gnocchi using urenika and other varieties of Māori potatoes.
The purpose of this was to get the students tasting and discussing the recipes and lead them into setting up focus groups to evaluate the results. These groups determined how consumers perceived purple coloured food and this also provided an opportunity to brainstorm people's reactions to it.
The class used their research to consider the advantages of urenika and how they could commercialise its use. They corresponded with Dr Nick Roskruge, (chairperson of the National Māori Vegetable Growers Collective and involved in a Massey University project considering the economic potential of Māori potatoes), about the cultivation and use of urenika.
They moved on to baking a variety of breads and practised using rewena and urenika. While developing their Kiwi Bread the students also had to investigate the possibility of mass producing it for a New Zealand or international market.
As their development progressed students prepared more bread and performed sensory attributes tests on samples, before preparing a batch of their final recipe for sensory evaluation.
Marietjie arranged with city store Commonsense Organics to be the class client, with the goal being to create a market for urenika. In contrast to the 2006 class, which had begun the year with no prior industry or community focus, the 2007 group was already experienced, having worked the previous year on In Flight meals, with Airport Catering as their client – see Student Showcase: Zoe.
Testing the frying qualities of Urenika potatoes
Students first visited shops that sold Māori bread then developed a questionnaire to support their client's need. After doing their investigation they took their bread and some of the purple potatoes to Commonsense Organics, where they offered samples to customers. They found that everyone liked the bread, and that many customers knew of urenika, although most had not actually used it. In order to support the commercialisation process the students handed out recipes to the customers, to encourage them to buy and use urenika.
Marietjie had used a Futureintech Facilitator to arrange a visit from Food Technologist Jo Jenkins of Griffins. Jo talked to the class about the product development process and the different aspects to that, such as the concepts stage, equipment and prescribed foods (those requiring a certain percentage of an ingredient, for example ice cream).
Marietjie also took advantage of Massey University's Big Day Out which gave Food Technology students the opportunity to visit food companies and talk to Food Technologists. Her class went to Kapiti Fine Foods Ltd where they watched milk being processed and learnt about pathogen management.
A visit to Carousel was a popular choice – this company makes lollies, mostly supplying New Zealand chain stores. Staff discussed production with the students; including some of the constraints they face in developing new products, such as the need to use existing equipment for production.
Back working on their final product tests, students had to bulk produce their bread product, package and label it, then ask school staff and bakery owners to taste it and answer questions in a survey.
The class travelled to Parewahawaha Marae in Bulls, where Kaumatua (elders) talked to them about urenika cultivation and had them digging in the urenika plot. Kaumatua tasted samples of the students' rewena paraoa and gave feedback on how they perceived the taste, shape and texture of the bread. They said that the bread was less sweet than the paraoa baked at the marae and that a full loaf would be easier to cut than one made into three sections.
Individual project
As everyone worked through the Kiwi Bread unit one student, Amy Lim, took on an extra challenge by revisiting the green bread issue; taking the opportunity to work with Breadcraft (Wai) Ltd in Masterton develop a proposal for a production process for rewena paraoa, with commercialisation of this bread as her focus. She used this to work towards Achievement Standard 90792 (3.3).
Amy using purple rewana to bake the green bread
After moving on from brief development to conceptual development Amy reviewed existing rewena recipes and experimented using different varieties of starches, which she then used in cooking rewena bread.
She compared the bakery technique with her own and conducted some food science experiments – raising agents, working with yeast, gluten development and Maillard Reaction .
Amy built a network of scientists willing to listen to her and support her project. She met with Dr Robert Lau, a Massey University scientist, who discussed leavening with her and recommended some experiments she could conduct on potato leavening. Amy also researched wild yeasts used in making sourdough bread, her aim being to find out the qualities of the various leavenings, how these could affect the bread and its manufacture, and especially the implications of using a living 'bug' within a factory under HACCP conditions.
Amy followed up the visit to Kapiti Fine Foods Ltd by using the knowledge she gained there and applying it to her process, swabbing her rewena so that it could be tested for any pathogens that might be present.
Marietjie van Schalkwyk:
"Amy kept adding to the project within the boundaries allocated; she explored every single opportunity she could in establishing her mass production proposal for her bread".
She also conducted shelf life and colour testing on her bread. The baked loaf was sliced, kept in plastic bags at room temperature and tested each day for fungi and mould growth over 14 days. Another loaf from the batch was stored and checked for colour deterioration each day for ten days; the result being that colour noticeably reduced overnight and by the fourth day was unacceptable.
As Amy continued working on her project she was still in contact with Breadcraft which went on to produce 25 kg of her green bread – a gratifying result for her production plan.
