Fuel Crisis Impact on Food

Mar 23
4 min read

Preparing for Rising Food Costs

Simple steps to build food resilience at home

Fuel price increases don’t just affect transport — they flow through to food prices. The good news is there are practical ways households can prepare and reduce the impact.

Sharing how to grow your own Backyard Supermarket

1. Start Growing Food (even small scale!)

You don’t need a big garden to make a difference.

Start with:

Fast-growing crops: lettuce, spinach, radishes
High-value foods: herbs (basil, parsley), tomatoes (spring/summer)
Easy staples: silverbeet, spring onions, beetroot

Even a few pots or containers can cut weekly grocery costs.

2. Grow What You Actually Eat

Focus on foods you buy regularly and enjoy — this gives the biggest savings.

Salad greens can give an ongoing harvest (fresh is truly best!)
Herbs are expensive to buy, easy to grow with many perennials (cut and come again) and can be of therapeutic or culinary use
Seasonal veg means it's cheaper and more productive, think silverbeet....one plant can feed many mouths and many meals
Don't limit yourself, then how about space for a few pots?

3. Learn to Grow from Seed

Seed raising is one of the cheapest ways to grow food.

A $5 packet of seeds can grow dozens of plants (a GOK membership allows members to collect up to 4 pkts of free seeds per month!)
Share or swap seeds with others
Grow On Katikati have a local seed library where members harvest and save seeds from crops they have successfully grown
Attend our monthly crop swap, there are often people swapping their seeds
Speak to a friend or neighbour and buy some seeds from Kings Seeds and share the cost as well as the seeds! There is enough to share. We are so grateful that they sponsor Grow On Katikati!

4. Preserve Surplus Food

Stretch food further and reduce waste.

Simple methods:

Freezing
Bottling/preserving
Drying herbs
Fermenting (e.g. sauerkraut)

This helps you store food when it’s cheap or abundant

Check out our upcoming Super Sauerkraut workshop. We run this every year as it's a great self-reliance skill to learn.

The process of fermenting can be applied to any vegetable. Here is one of our Steering Group members, Marie, getting into massaging her kraut.

5. Buy Smarter

Buy seasonal produce, it is usually cheaper than something that has had to be flown here
Buy in bulk where possible to save $
Buy seconds of fruit or veggies (sometimes they may have grown odd shapes, nothing wrong with them, but not commercially acceptable).
Swap or share with others (we have a GROW ON Info Share page for this)
When it's feijoa season (or any other fruit season), collect and freeze them for later use or pulp and bottle for drizzling on top of ice cream or yoghurt.
Reduce cheap, processed food purchases as these are usually nutritionally inferior.
Easy and cheap to grow, and huge nutrition benefits. In winter, grow broad beans.

6. Connect with Your Community

Connected communities are Resilient communities. We can share, swap and give away excess.

Join our monthly crop swap or become a member of Grow On Katikati (Waihi/Otumoetai)
Share surplus produce
Learn skills from others
Offer to volunteer to keep our project vibrant (there are many tasks and we can find one that suits you)
Grow On Katikati Crop Swap takes place first Saturday of every month.

7. Build Soil & Compost

Healthy soil equates to more food for less cost.

Start a compost bin
Use kitchen scraps and garden pruning
Add worm farming if possible (vermicast)

All these natural fertilisers save you big dollars in terms of less money spent on buying compost or fertilisers, as well as increased harvest potential. More food growing potential equals less money spent on fresh produce at the supermarket.
Composting 101 Workshop

8. Reduce Waste

Plan meals for the week, so you buy just what is needed and not spend on "maybe"
Use leftovers creatively (can last night's baked veg go into tonight's pasta dish?)
Store food properly so it doesn't go off before it can be used (fridge or freezer?)

Take away: Wasted food = wasted money

Left over salad - can you scoop out the tomatoes and capsicum to add to tomorrow's soup? Waste not, want not.

Start Small, Grow over Time

You don’t need to do everything at once.

Start with just 2–3 easy crops (lettuce and silverbeet)
Add more each season as you become confident
Build on your skills gradually, and take the opportunity to attend community workshops to learn new skills
Sow some broad beans this winter. They are hardy, nutritious (and delicious, but require some work to extract) AND they fix nitrogen in the soil, which means they make the soil more fertile for future crops!

The Big Picture Take Away

Growing even a small portion of your own food can:

Reduce grocery bills
Improve food security
Increase resilience as food prices continue to rise
Strengthen community connections

You don’t need to be fully self-sufficient to make a difference. Every lettuce, every herb, every shared seed is a step towards greater self independence and resilience. Every dollar you didn’t need to spend on food is another dollar to cover other expenses.