Fruit, vegetables, eggs and honey are all good buys.
It's easy to tell if fruit and vegetables are fresh, but you have to rely on the honesty of the producer for eggs.
Honey makes a nice souvenir of your trip as it is usually very distinctive to the region it is gathered from - clover from Southern paddocks, thyme honey from Central Otago, vipers bugloss from North Otago and honeydew from the Canterbury foothills.
However, if you are buying honey from a roadside stall in the north of the South Island or in the North Island it pays to check whether the beekeeper has taken precautions against contamination with tutin.
In March this year, people eating honey from the Coromandel became seriously ill from eating tutin in honey.
It has also been found in honey samples from northern Hawkes Bay and Gisborne and eastern Bay of Plenty, Northland and the Marlborough Sounds.
Tutu is a poisonous native plant species found throughout New Zealand, but the risk of toxic honey comes from bees gathering honeydew from vine hopper insects that have fed on the sap of the tutu plant, according to the New Zealand Food Safety Authority.
NZFSA is working with the honey industry to produce a new standard for maximum tutin levels, which should be in place by the beginning of 2009, according to NZFSA's senior programme manager (animal products), Jim Sim.
However, even with standards in place, there is little a consumer can do to protect themselves when buying from roadside stalls unless they contact the beekeeper and ensure the honey is safe, he says.
If you are obtaining honey direct from a beekeeper you could ask what precautions the beekeeper has taken - e.g.: Where was it harvested from? - Honey from the south of the South Island is not thought to be at risk of tutin contamination because of the lack of passion vine hoppers that lead to the problem.
Was that batch tested for tutin? Is there any tutu in the vicinity of the keeper's beehives? If so, are tutu bushes checked for toxic honeydew? Was it harvested at a time of year when the risk is low (i.e. not between January and April, when the risk is high)?
Honey should be labelled with the name and address of the supplier - if not, don't buy it.
Comb honey is potentially more risky than liquid or creamed honey because any toxin present will not be diluted in the blending process.
• On the web www.nzfsa.govt.nz/animalproducts/subject/bee-products/index.htm#P25-1556
