Over the past two weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with a number of vegetable growers across New Zealand. One theme that kept coming up-regardless of crop, scale, or region-was value perception. Growers repeatedly voiced their concerns around how their produce is valued, especially in the context of their relationships with food retailers and the broader supply chain. These conversations offered valuable insight into the pressures faced on the production side. But to truly understand why fresh vegetables are often undervalued in our domestic market, we need to go beyond the farm gate and untangle the consumer's mind. It’s in the everyday decisions, habits, and assumptions of the consumer that the real picture of value perception begins to take shape.

The global climate crisis has led a number of countries and regions to rethink economic models and consumption patterns. One of these models is a circular and bioeconomic system. In Aotearoa New Zealand, it is still unclear how this will be implemented. This is not unique to New Zealand with research around the globe noting the proliferations of definitions and inconsistencies around implementation. This working paper aims to review some of these definitions and highlights the general principles of a circular economy. The paper expands on this by examining what circular and bioeconomy strategy plans have been implemented across the geographic regions of Europe, the Americas, and Asia. This provides a contextual foundation to examine New Zealand’s own bioeconomy before exploring opportunities and challenges of a transition to a circular and bioeconomy for Aotearoa. These opportunities have been explored in a number of relevant areas, highlighting the issues of siloing, legislation gaps, and access to capital/finance in attempting to move towards a more sustainable future.