So, I read the article from Auckland restauranteurs crying about throwing away 10s of thousands of dollars worth of stock. And I have some thoughts. But first: I call BULLSHIT. Nothing needed to written off and I hope IRD hammers every restaurant that attempts to claim this loss.

My credentials: I have worked 3 Michelin stars, unpaid. And as there are 140ish triple stars and assuming they have 100 chefs per that puts me in the top 15,000 chefs on the planet. To quote HST "At that level the air is mighty thin and not every one can even breathe"

So, my opinion is qualified. At a level beyond that of the highest standards of New Zealand hospo.
Nothing needed to be throw away. The wine that was opened? Reduce it down and use it for cooking.
Seafood can and should be cured.
Same with all proteins.
Vegetables pickled.

There is no reason for the waste. It is offensive to Te Ao Māori, my craft, my training and the traditions of professional cookery. This should not be allowed to stand and in a just society those responsible should be forced to account.

IRD should audit every restaurant that claims a loss for this week and they should be fined.
Hard.
Wipe them out.
I have a dozen books on curing sitting on my shelf, most even in English.
Every professional cookery course I have done/read teaches the zero waste aim.

If the NZ food scene wants to be anything but an embarrassment it needs to up it's game and shun every "Chef" that willfully wastes anything. Traditional European cookery can be used, so they can't even hide behind their anti-Māori bullshit. This is laziness.

Or far more likely, nothing was thrown away and it is just the owners committing fraud.