Source: Radio New Zealand
A Taiwanese family in Auckland is turning a Lunar New Year staple into an everyday purchase, producing about 300,000 dumplings a week as demand grows on mainstream supermarket shelves.
While eaten year-round, many families in China eat dumplings around midnight on Lunar New Year’s Eve, which falls on 16 February this year.
The dumplings’ shape is traditionally believed to resemble ingots, signalling greater wealth in the year ahead.
Such symbolism helped fuel a seasonal rush each year, said Amy Sevao, chief executive of Old Country Food, an Auckland-based dumpling manufacturer.
While consumed year-round, many families in China eat dumplings around midnight on Lunar New Year’s Eve. RNZ / Yiting Lin
The Lunar New Year was the company’s busiest time, she said.
The factory produces about 300,000 dumplings a week, or roughly 1.2 million a month, and orders from mainstream supermarkets typically rise by as much as 20 percent during the festival period.
Sevao, who moved from Taiwan to New Zealand with her parents in 1995, is married to a Samoan man. The couple has two young sons.
She said dumplings had become a thread that tied together different generations in her family.
“It’s such a traditional food,” she said.
“You get together for Lunar New Year, have dumplings and the parents or older relatives will say, ‘Oh, look, this looks like an old gold ingot. It means good fortune, money.’ Those stories get passed on, and that’s always really fun.”
Amy Sevao and her parents will eat dumplings to celebrate Lunar New Year on Monday night. RNZ / Yiting Lin
Drawing on memories from her childhood, Sevao said dumplings were everyday fare in Taiwan and had steadily gained popularity in New Zealand.
In her view, that rise has tracked the broader story of Asian immigration in the country.
Old Country Food had been in business for about 35 years, she said.
It was founded by immigrants from Hong Kong and has since changed hands several times among Asian immigrant families, before Sevao’s parents bought the business in 2015.
“In a way, the history of OCF (Old Country Food) reflects the history of Asian immigration in New Zealand,” she said.
A Taiwanese family in Auckland needs to produce about 300,000 dumplings a week as demand for the dish grows. RNZ / Yiting Lin
Sevao said breaking into the mainstream market could be challenging for businesses owned by migrants.
“When I first started in the business, we were 100 percent in Asian supermarkets,” she said.
“After a while, we thought the mainstream market was much bigger, we should give it a go,” she said.
“We started selling to independent grocery stores like Fresh World or Fruit World,” she said.
“Now we’re in PAK’nSAVE and New World [stores] across the North Island and also in the South Island.
A Taiwanese family in Auckland needs to produce about 300,000 dumplings a week as demand for the dish grows. RNZ / Yiting Lin
She said immigrants had less support because they often didn’t have extensive networks in the community.
“We often have to overcome language barriers,” she said.
“There are lots of laws and regulations, and the way business is done in New Zealand can be very different from the way it is done in Asia.
“To overcome all of that, to have a great team working toward the same goal and to have that effort recognised not only by supermarkets, but by everyday people who go and buy our food, our products every single week, that’s a really great feeling.”
Sevao’s parents agreed that breaking into the mainstream market could be difficult for migrant-owned businesses, but said it was not impossible.
Bingnan Cai, 72, and Lingxin Huang, 66, bought the dumpling manufacturer a decade ago, hoping to help make dumplings a more mainstream part of New Zealand’s food landscape.
“After we moved here, we really missed the taste of our hometown,” Huang said. “Dumplings are one of them.
“We wanted to integrate into society,” she said. “We wanted to help popularise traditional cuisine, so we started this dumpling factory.”
While consumed year-round, many families in China eat dumplings around midnight on Lunar New Year’s Eve. RNZ / Yiting Lin
Cai said sushi, long a symbol of Asian cuisine abroad, had gained popularity among New Zealanders.
Seeing that sushi was now sold in most shopping malls, he was confident his dumplings could also become part of everyday eating in New Zealand.
Cai said he wanted dumplings to become one of New Zealand’s signature foods.
“If you want to enter the mainstream market, you must accept this challenge,” Cai said. “The number of people eating dumplings here would not exceed 15 percent [of the whole population].
“It’s really challenging to grow such a small market into a big one,” he said. “But everything is possible.”
Sevao was confident dumplings had become a staple for many households in New Zealand.
“I think good food is cross-cultural,” she said.
“If it tastes good, it doesn’t matter what culture you come from. … I think dumplings are a very universal food.”
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
