ZM's Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley - Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley's Lil Bitta Pod - 4th January 2024

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

On Today's Lil Bitta Pod; Bad news Brad pops in with his predictions for 2024!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fleshborn and Hayley's Little Bitter Pod Enjoy a refreshing McCafe iced coffee available only from Macca's Great things are brewing Welcome to A Little Bitter Pod, the big pod and the show is back on the 15th of January We'll see He's only been in studio for a few minutes but he's already got three new monikers Bestie Brad. Yep.

International fuckboy Brad. Yeah. That was his favourite. He told me and if he says anything else now he's a complete liar. He's wearing Tanchinos. It's the only thing we can call him.

And Brad Brad he's not my dad. To be honest there was only two. I felt like lists always need three. Ladies and gentlemen it's Bad News Brad.

Hello T. Hello. We didn't even give him his real title of Principal Economist but that's okay. C-O-F-O. C-E-O.

C-E-O. Yeah, wow. Of Infometrics. Letters of three again. What's the three? They're good things. You've got to always have three of them. When you walked in initially, was it you, Vaughn, or had you thought that maybe you were dressed

in the racist F-boy uniform of chinos and blue shirt, but there's no blue shirt. It's a white shirt. Yes. So he's not a fuckboy. White shirt, blue blazer. That we can confirm. I mean, I can upgrade my dress sense if I need to. Next time.

Next time. Next time. Fuckboy. Fuckboy out. And let's do finances. Now, I believe we're going to play a game with Bad News Brad. A game of his own device. Yes.

I love that you've brought this to the point. I thought we could have a bit of fun with Hot or Not Food Price Edition over summer. The price is right. Sort of. Everyone loves a good summer eating session. That's one of the best

things. Got to figure out if it makes it to the beach. I also like spring, autumn and winter eating sessions just to confirm. There's something about sitting on the beach trying to protect whatever you're eating from the sand But also sharing it with friends Can I say on that Last summer at the beach My friends and I saw someone with a camping table

That they bring to the beach It's like a little fold out tray I've got one They're so good It almost looks like a chopping board But then the legs flip out like this And it's like a small Camping table

Yeah I've got one of those Yeah Well why don't I have Does everyone have one of these? I don't We went out on a Full team shopping trip To get

Yeah everybody Oh we didn't Maybe that was the day That we didn't have a flat flat Leave Fletch out He doesn't deserve This unusual height table This sounds like an idea

For like Christmas present next year. Yeah, actually. It's a great idea. So food prices, I mean, that's been the topic of conversation for the whole year. Does any drink make the list? No, I haven't included drinks in there. I've got a question. Booze has definitely increased in price from a man that purchases booze quite often.

And beer, like there's been this year, like some craft beer outfits have gone under and they said it's because of the price of carbon dioxide. Yep. Is the price of carbon dioxide going to come down again? Probably not as much. So you've got, you're right. I mean, the issue at the moment is just supply of CO2.

We haven't been making as much food grade stuff since the refinery shut up in Whangarei and similar. But so the issue is almost not the price is the secondary thing. It's the fact that we just don't have all that much CO2. So probably not. The other issue for alcohol is that the excise tax on alcohol goes up each year by the rate of effectively adjusted inflation.

So when we've got high inflation at the moment, it pushes alcohol prices up even more. Same with tobacco and similar. So very much those are in the not pile in terms of cost. Drinks and darts aren't included. They're not the things you want to do. No. Right. But I thought instead, well, play hot or not food edition.

I'll give you a few what I think to be normal summer items, and you can tell me whether, one, you like them, because I think, again, trying to figure out if we ever do a dinner party what I need to bring. Oh great. But also whether or not you think. On the deck you encouraged me to build. Yeah. Oh come on. Out the back of the house that he said you must renovate. He said you do it

now do it now spend spend spend. See I was going to get you a barbecue or something as a housewarming present but it's gone now. It's gone. It's gone. And then you can tell me whether or not you think it's going up or down in price at the moment. Okay, great. Compared to last year. Compared to last year. Okay, last year was a fucking

terrible growing season. I mean, I don't want to spoil this game but I have a feeling everything's up. Not quite. Let's have a bit of fun with this. Going in and having some scrambled eggs. Hot or not? Hot.

Hot. Eggs have gone up. But we love eggs. We're a collective of egg lovers. The chicken feed's gone up. Chicken feed has gone up. Like, all doubled in prices. We first got chickens.

So is the price up? So the price is up. You're right that it's hot. I love a good scrambled eggs. But price up. So if you can get, maybe go and steal some chicken eggs from I mean, is that a... Yeah, there's some here. I mean, we could give you

Are you travelling? Where are you going after this? You can have some eggs. Do you want some eggs? I'll leave you guys with the eggs. Do you want to eat an egg now? No, absolutely not. This is not Fairfax to challenge goodness. Okay. What if you would have So if the eggs are expensive, where's crab at? Because we also love a chilli egg crab scramble.

Where's crab at? Where's crab at? Okay, I'm not going to lie. You're comparing it every day, like I'm just nipping to the supermarket to get some eggs and some milk and some bread. But what if I want a chilli crab scramble? It's gone up. Crab's gone up. Out of the 155 items that Stats NZ tracks, crab is not one of them.

And I think if you're able to think about buying crab, you're fine. Yeah, I think so. Summer barbecue, hot or not? Hot. No, it's gone up because the price of LPG's gone up. Well, okay. And the price of charcoal has gone up. Sausage is surely down. Sausages are down.

Only 1%, so not a huge amount. About $12 a kilo or so over the last year. Steak is slightly down. It's lamb chops that are winning at the moment. They're a little bit cheaper than they have been before. I love a lamb chop with mint. Yeah, exactly. That's a great summertime staple.

Why? Why? Yeah, why is meat? Because at the moment we're seeing that there's more and more sheep and lambs being killed, particularly over in Australia, because it's so dry over there. And also international markets not buying as much. We've still got sheep in the country. They've got to be killed at some point.

So again, a little bit more supply into the domestic market. It's so brutal the way you described that. They must be killed. Because animals are dying, so we have to eat them. Yeah. I mean, I'm not wrong, though. Yeah, no, you're not wrong. Cooked chips, you know, some hot chips

And related Fish and chips Hot, we love them But they're more expensive It was a shortage Indeed, up 19% Far out Holy heck right

That is a flow on effect from Cyclone Gabriel right That destroyed lots of crops Of taters, kermiters. Kermiters are spinny at the moment, and I expect them to be spinny all the time for a long time. Tomato sauce also up. Really? Yeah, it's making stuff expensive.

Because of tomatoes, okay. A good summer roast on Christmas Day or at some point when mum's going to cook it. What are we roasting? Hot. Well, great question, because this depends on whether or not it's hot. So what are you thinking? What would your go-to be? My roast is a chicken.

Same. I haven't included chicken in here. But you're thinking like a beef roast? Well, I'm looking at beef is down. We heard about the beef. Lamb roast is down. Pork is up. Lamb.

Pork is up. You guys are good at this game. Yeah. You guys are good at this game. Yeah. You're very good at this game. So, yeah, no, you're right in terms of roast. I buy a lot of meat, Brad. Literally every time I go, in my head, oh, that was last time, that was $27.99,

and now it's up to $32. This is some bullshit. And that's what I say. I point it out, and I say, this is some bullshit. So the other issue, though, is that you're getting some of the greens are coming down. So if you're having beans with your roast, for example, they're down a bit. But that kumara, really, really quite expensive.

But you're right, pork up. Pork up, lamb down. Pork up, lamb down. So have a lamb leg, not a pork shoulder. Correct. At the moment. I'm not mad at lamb. Exactly.

You can find options, right? Okay, what about, and this is my version, is it a charcuterie board? Yes. Now, we are is it a charcuterie board yes we are fans of a charcuterie we do great charcuterie boys now my two biggest parts of of those boards are cheese and tomatoes a little cherry tomatoes oh yeah i love a cherry tom on it so okay hot or not hot cherry tomatoes cost well yeah they cost more no, they've come down. Oh, thank God. They're coming back. Yeah. They were like $15 for a punnet. They were hugely expensive, but they're down about 12% over the last year.

They're getting a lot better. Avvo, also a lot more available, a lot cheaper. I've seen Avvo's are back. Yeah, Avvo's are cheap. What about cheese, though? Because the last couple of months we've had the $10 blocks hit the supermarket shelves. But that's not really on a charcutte, is it? Oh, not the $10 block of cheese. Your Breeze,

your Camembert's, your Brewer's, your Kuma's Gouda's, your Gouda's, your Haberty's. So cheese is slightly down, and you're right that it's mostly down for your sort of big value blocks. EDM, tasty, Colby's.

But to be fair, if I needed to make a cheese board or similar, yeah, okay, yeah, I might get my camembert or something, but I might do just a few slices of normal cheese on the side. I've never mad at it when there's a normal cheese on a board. Exactly. Especially if there's a pickled onion. Oh, yeah. Pickled onion and a cube of, like, Tasty or Edam.

Yeah, good stuff. In the gob. In the gob. Okay, last one, most important one, good at any time of the day or night. Chicken nuggets. What are nugs costing? Hot.

Chicken. You didn't do chicken meat in your previous roast. Would you say chickens? I'd say chicken's up. I'd say it's up. That's the meat I buy the most, and I'd say this year it's gone up. Got to have.

Oh, nugs. This is the disappointing thing. Absolutely agree. They're hot. They're one of the greatest things on planet Earth, but they are up about 12, 13% over the nugs. This is the disappointing thing. Absolutely agree. They're hot. They're one of the greatest things on planet Earth. But they are up about 12%, 13% over the last year. You know why? This is our own fault.

Because we've told everybody about butter chicken nuggets. Haven't we got to be trying butter chicken nuggets? Do we miss this? Was this when I was over in the US eating every other food creation imaginable? So it's evolved too. So initially we were like, how good would chicken nuggets be with butter chicken? Just the sauce. So we did it.

Were we hungover? I did it one weekend because the kids were getting nuggets and we were getting curry. So we were like, let's combine. And my kids were just like, this is the greatest thing we've ever eaten. And then that Friday when we were hungover at work. They gave up their nuggets to you? It was a trade. It was a trade.

We did a trade. I let them have some curry. We're still going to have to talk to you because that's a bad trade. The barter system. No. Oh, no. There was like an oven tray full of nuggets. And then we were hungover because we had something on Thursday. Our Fletch, Paul and Hayley live.

Yes, that's right. And then we ate that the next day and it was top notch. And then it's evolved since. Recently I saw my daughter get a garlic and cheese naan, slop a bit of butter chicken sauce in there Put the nuggets in And then put pickles on top Fold it up and eat it like a wrapper of kebabs

See I reckon this could become like the guy on TikTok That seems to just put food and food and food into each other It started with a turducken but now it's just everything The combos, the unusual combos You simply must. Whatever's interesting, I thought everything was up. But it's good that we're getting some... Downward trending foods.

Slowly downward trending foods, yeah. There's a few better options out there. I mean, you've still got to shop around. And, I mean, life's still expensive as heck. But, I mean, look, I'm a huge tomato fan, especially in summer. So to see those prices come back, I'm feeling better about myself. We had a terrible summer. And even spring growing season last year was awful.

So, yeah, it's definitely been a better start this year. Well, it was a fun game. Thank you, Brady. That's all right. Has the ass dropped out of anything? Like, is anything just like dumpster fire, clearance sale cheap? Yes. Do you know what it is?

It's broccoli. I love broccoli. I love broccoli. I love broccoli. I've noticed that. It's been like the last, what, three months of the end of last year. Yep. It was really expensive. It was really, no, really cheap.

No, it was getting cheaper. Let's not forget it was like eight bucks for a head. Yeah. Now we're back down to your three buck a good ranch. Yeah, or even less, yeah. Oh, God, this is making me hungry. Brad, thank you. Thank you so much.

What a fun game.