Top eateries to satisfy the munchies during hemp week

One of the new dishes on offer during Whakamana Hemp Week will be the vegan eggplant and cannellini meatballs with hemp chimichurri Photo: Longshot Photography/Will Robinson

Several Christchurch restaurants will be cooking with a new ingredient on Monday - hemp.

Seven eateries are set to add a range of special dishes to their menus for the first Whakamana Hemp Week from December 9-15.

The new dishes will include a mushroom and hemp pesto sandwich, hemp super smoothie and hemp tart.

Hemp was legalised as a food source in New Zealand in 2018 and has a wide range of uses and environmental benefits. It is from the same family as cannabis but has a very low THC content (the main active ingredient in cannabis) and is usually grown for

industrial uses.

Said sustainability entrepreneur Guido Loeffler: "It [hemp] provides us with a highly nutritious food, the strongest natural fibre, amazing building materials, compostable plastics and it can actually restore the health of the environment."

Hemp plants.

Whakamana Hemp Week will also feature special guest chef, Cameron Simms, who is set to speak at the final event on December 15 at the Whakamana Cannabis Museum on Manchester St.

"When I started thinking of a way to promote hemp and the new Whakamana Education Institute, I mentioned it to a few chefs who were immediately interested in doing something creative with it in the kitchen,” Mr Sims said.

Diners will be also able to upload a picture of their dish with the hashtag #hempfoodweek to win a meal at the participating restaurants.