The world's first ever hāngī buns have have hit some supermarket shelves in Aotearoa, and all we can say is sign us up.
A hāngī master and an Asian bakery owner have “accidentally” collabed to make what is called a Hāngī Bun.
Rewi Spraggon and Amy Sevao explained to NZ Herald how they created the fusion bun.
SOURCE: Hangi Master
Spraggon began by saying, “Amy's dad was at a festival and tried one of my pork belly buns and went home and bought back 20 different flavoured bao buns.”
"From there Amy and I got together and came up with the Hāngī Bun. We have a number of different ideas for other joint cuisine collaborations."
Sevao said there was a gap in the market for authentic Māori-Asian fused kai.
SOURCE: Hangi Master
She continued, "We saw great potential for the Hāngī bun in both retail and food service, so once we had refined the recipe we invested in an initial production run of 5000 samples to test the water."
We’re pretty stoked they did, because it sounds like the snack we never knew we needed.
According to Sevao, "This is the only place you can buy hangi buns in the world.”
"This is a very unique product."
SOURCE: Hangi Master
The pair added that they are now looking to expand the availability of the item so that all Kiwis can access the kai.
“Our aim is to ensure that everyone can buy them from their local Pak'nSave or New World supermarket, so our team is working extra hard to make that happen,” Sevao explained, adding, "we can produce 10,000 hāngī buns a day, so there's no issue with capacity."
Currently, the Hāngī Buns are only stocked by Foodstuffs in their North Island stores, but with the plan to expand, we’re sure hoping to see them stocked nationwide in the near future.
