Spoilt for choice: Is Christchurch the food capital of NZ?

Saturday, 11 May 2024

Is Christchurch snatching the title as the foodie capital of the nation?

Last year the city saw more than 2000 food licences registered or renewed - a quarter more than in the previous year. These include cafés, restaurants, bars, takeaway outlets and food trucks with one registered or renewed for every 200 people in the city.

Amongst them is Brewda, a modern Korean restaurant, which opened late last year in central Christchurch. Its owner Cian Curtin said Christchurch was becoming known as “a hospitality hub”, a crown held by Auckland a few years ago.

He said the quality of places opening in Christchurch was more unique than it had been. “There are a lot of foreigners in Christchurch, and it’s cool to see their culture start to come through.”

Curtin did not believe the city was “oversaturated”. Instead, restaurant, café and food truck owners were “finding gaps in the market, and filling them”.

While not everybody would survive “that's up to us,” he said. Despite the economic downturn “people don’t mind spending the money if they see value”.

University of Canterbury researcher and Professor in Marketing Sussie Morrish, who tracked the hospitality numbers in Christchurch after the earthquakes until 2016, said she had continued to watch trends in the industry.

She was “very surprised” at the rapid pace at which hospitality had bounced back after the earthquakes and Covid. 'The Christchurch rebuild is a hotbed of entrepreneurial opportunities where new entrepreneurs have emerged.

'We have probably the most modern type, contemporary-style, and new concepts restaurants. You can just find everything in Christchurch.”

She said consumers were spoiled for choice but operators faced stiff competition.

Morrish noted the trend towards hospitality entrepreneurs owning more than one outlet.

Cocoa Black owner Yong Ren is about to open his fifth café in Canterbury, and number six is under way. He believed the region had enough cafés but they were not all done well.

He said those coming into the industry did not always understand the challenges of hospitality. 'Lots of people, they think it's really easy to get into hospitality. Some investors have money and they come here and buy a franchise. They have no experience, no background, then they run the business down.'

The latest figures come from the Christchurch City Council’s record of “food registrations”. The council, with a population of about 400,000, issued or renewed 2014 food registrations in the 12 months up to the first week of May, a 26% leap on the previous 12 months when just under 1600 registrations were issued.

These figures do not include registrations for food outlets such as dairies, early childhood centres, and service stations.

Wellington, which once boasted it had more eateries per capita than New York City, currently has fewer than 1200 eateries registered with the city council including 838 eat-in, 273 takeaways and 83 mobile businesses. It said the numbers had remained stable in previous years.

Auckland Council, with a population of about 1.7 million, currently has 7651 businesses operating with a food control plan. These include restaurants, cafés, caterers, food trucks and takeaways.

Hospitality spending is also on the rise across Canterbury. The Restaurant Association’s latest figures for the region show $517.8 million was spent in the region’s cafés, restaurants, bars, takeaway outlets, clubs and on catering during the last quarter of 2023, up 3.9% from the same time the previous year.

Across Canterbury, the association recorded 2487 outlets in 2023, a modest 1% increase on 2463 in 2022. With a region-wide population of nearly 630,000, this equated to about 250 people per restaurant.

Association chief executive Marisa Bidois said the total number of council licences issued did not take account of those which had closed or changed hands. Despite this, she said the “the overarching narrative remains one of growth and opportunity”.

She said those businesses that embraced innovation, adapted to changing tastes and prioritised customers would thrive. Prior to Covid the hospitality sector had experienced consistent growth, indicating its resilience and adaptability.

Lisa Levy, co-owner of fine dining eatery Inati and Canterbury branch president of the Restaurant Association New Zealand, said she did not perceive an overload of outlets.

'We have restaurants, bars, clubs, food trucks, fast food… so saying hospitality is overloaded is quite difficult when you put all those genres together.

'We all offer something different.'

She said there were challenges, “and winter is notoriously hard here in Christchurch” but the sector was “fairly optimistic”.

Her business experienced a strong final quarter last year, with 70% of the customers being tourists. 'We've seen a huge increase in tourism with cruise ships and direct flights… they all helped us.'

Xiangrui Yang recalled that there were only four Chinese restaurants in Christchurch in the 1970s. But now, he feels that 'almost every single day there comes a new food operator on Riccarton Rd.'

He opened his first restaurant in 1979. 'It was a disaster. My food was new, it was fine dining, but it was not well accepted because it was so different,' he said.

Yang’s current restaurant, Dragon Express on Riccarton Rd, has 'almost the same menu' as his first restaurant but the acceptance of it had increased enormously.

“Some of my customers even knew more about Chinese regional cuisines, such as those in Northern China, than me,” said Yang.

From a business owner’s perspective, more restaurants meant fierce competition, Yang said. “Running a restaurant is hard work and requires long working hours.”