Best New Zealand Food Souvenirs

After you’ve spent weeks exploring the beautiful landscapes, cities, and small towns of New Zealand, you’ll naturally start thinking about what souvenirs to bring home.

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We’ve never been a huge fan of the kitschy souvenirs you find in every tourist shop because, really, what friend or family member needs another t-shirt, paperweight, or a random shot glass from a place they’ve never been?

Instead, we like to look for unique New Zealand food souvenirs that actually give people a taste of the country. Kiwi snacks, local treats, and specialty food gifts feel so much more personal, and they’re also a delicious way to share a small piece of your trip with everyone back home.

After travelling around New Zealand, these are the tasty souvenirs that earned space in our bags, plus a few extra Kiwi favorites you might want to make room for too. We know some of you will say that not all of these originate exclusively from New Zealand but for travelers like us from Canada, we thought these were impressively unique enough to bring back.

The Best New Zealand Food Souvenirs To Bring Home

When it comes to food souvenirs, these were our favorites that we learned about as we travelled throughout New Zealand. So, without further ado, here are our 5 favorite food souvenirs from New Zealand.

#1 Whittaker’s Chocolate

Oh man how do we even start? Whittaker’s Chocolate is the premiere chocolate brand that’s been around since 1896 in New Zealand. They’re a local favorite for good reason because of their emphasis on using high quality cocoa beans, highly controlled processes, and obsession in keeping the cocoa butter and mass together.

Besides there being an overwhelming number of flavors, combinations, and classes, they also have different packaging sizes so you’ll no doubt be scratching your head a bit when you first encounter Whittaker’s.

Our recommendation? Eat lots of chocolate while travelling! Use your time in New Zealand to try all different kinds of bars that speak to you so you can narrow down your favorite. What can help is if you start with the Minimix bag.

To narrow down your choices, we’ve compiled our favorites.

Hokey Pokey

This is basically crunchy chunks of sponge candy. If you’re not familiar with sponge candy, it’s the addictive stuff we found in Buffalo’s Watson’s, or they’re found in a Canadian/British bar called Crunchie.

Essentially you got these small chunks swirled into milk chocolate and it’s such a perfect combination of smooth decadence with spongy crunch delight.

Hokey Pokey itself is a Kiwi-specific term for sponge candy that you can find all over the place, whether it’s in gelato, ice cream, or other desserts.

Tweats

The packaging for this feature small birds hatching out of their shells, which doesn’t really tell you too much but essentially, it’s creamy milk chocolate with popping candy inside. 

Remember Pop Rocks? Yep, they’ve stirred those right into the chocolate to bring back good memories of our childhood and a twist to eating chocolate.

L&P

Wow was this one a mission to find! A good friend of ours kept raving about Whittaker’s and their L&P chocolate. First of all, we had no clue what L&P was before going to New Zealand, so that didn’t help.

The first 2+ weeks in New Zealand, we went to every single possible convenient store and grocery store to look for the elusive L&P. It wasn’t until we got to Taupo that we made a giant breakthrough and found a bag of these in the mini-slab format. 

We were skeptical whether this would be as incredible as she made it out to be.

Oh it was!

The crazy thing is that the product doesn’t even exist on the Whittaker’s product page because it was a special collaboration with the drink, L&P (more on that below), years ago but is secretly still in production if you know where to look.

This mash up is this wild mix of white chocolate with a lemon twist, topped with popping rocks to simulate the insane fizz you get from drinking L&P. It’s absolutely brilliant!

This is our pick for top souvenir to bring back home just because it’s so New Zealand and really something you can’t find sold anywhere else.

#2 Manuka Honey

Internationally, this is what New Zealand has really become known for. Manuka honey is a special type of honey that’s primarily found here that comes from bees pollinating a native bush called manuka.

The hype around manuka honey is in its natural antibacterial qualities. Without getting all science-ey here, there is a massively high concentration of the antibacterial component in the nectar of manuka flowers.

This is why manuka honey is much more expensive than regular honey.

What Is Manuka Said To Treat?

• Improve oral health
• Sooth sore throat
• Prevent gastric ulcers
• Promote aid healing
• Treat acne
• Treat symptoms of cystic fibrosis
• Improve digestive symptoms like IBS

Now It Gets Science-ey

Now not all manuka honey is equal because of the concentration of that antibacterial compound. That’s why there are rating systems such as UMF (Unique Manuka Factor). To be considered potent enough to be therapeutic, manuka honey needs to be a minimum of UMF 10. The number goes higher and higher and that just means more of that active ingredient.

This gets a bit more complicated when there are competing grading systems. MGO is another and stands for the active ingredient that we’ve been speaking of (methylglyoxal).  10UMF is equivalent to 263 MGO. In Manuka that uses MGO, you’re usually looking for around 300 MGO.

So What Should You Get?

This is probably what you care about. The truth is that unless you’re looking to treat something serious and you’re truly using it for medicinal purposes, all you need is UMF 10+ because most likely you’re going to be stirring it into hot water or with tea since you’ll still be using regular honey back at home for regular honey things.

Small bottles make great gifts and no need to go overboard with high UMF/MGO unless you’re buying it for someone that really knows about manuka.

#3 Special Edition Tim Tams

We know, Tim Tams are Australian! But if you’re going to be in this part of the world, we say why not, take advantage!

These days, you can find Tim Tams in your local grocery store because Arnott’s has started to really push them out and the demand for them is there because they really are addictive.

Instead of the regular flavors out there (original, dark chocolate, chewy caramel), look out for the special ones that never make it out of the Asia Pacific region.

This year, we discovered the latest collaboration between Tim Tams and a gelato shop called Gelato Messina, which we went to in our 2 days in Sydney.

The two that we really loved were the Honeycomb (Hokey Pokey!) and Iced Coffee flavors. There’s also a Turkish Delight version that we didn’t try.

What is unique about these Tim Tams are that they’re meant to be chilled in the fridge. The “Chill Me!” part of the packaging actually changes color when cold. Now do you have to have these chilled? Probably not as we feel like it’s a bit of a gimmick, but it does get you wondering what Tim Tams are like when cold and it does give them a nice extra crunch.

#4 L&P

L&P stands for Lemon & Paeroa and speaks to the history of how it was invented. Created in 1097, lemon juice was combined with carbonated mineral water from the town of Paeroa, and voila, L&P was born.

We’d say as a drink, this is very much a like-it-or-hate-it kind of thing. It’s similar to Sprite or 7-Up except with what feels like double the amount of carbonation.

While we were in New Zealand, it was super refreshing to have, especially after a hot day out at Cathedral Cove, but we personally found it too bubbly.

Also, if you plan on bringing a few of these home, we would avoid packing these in your suitcase in case they leak/blow up. Pack them with you on your carry on where the cabin is pressurized and you should be okay. You can even go the extra step and put it in a bag in case.

#5 Creamed Manuka

Okay maybe we’re just totally late to the creamed honey game but this was a new discovery from our trip to New Zealand after Jean from Traveling Honeybird mentioned it.

We finally got around to picking up one for our Flying Kiwi group and it’s been a revelation! Creamed honey is basically a process to control crystallization of raw honey and results in a smooth spreadable consistency.

Take this and introduce it to honey that has manuka in it and you get a very unique flavor profile that you won’t find in honey back home.

The best part about these is that they’re not expensive to buy compared to full manuka honey and is actually a useful gift for anyone that likes spreads on toast.

More New Zealand Snacks And Food Souvenirs We Wish We Had Room For

If there’s one mistake we made when leaving New Zealand, it was not leaving enough space in our bags. While these were the five Kiwi treats that made the final cut and came home with us, there were plenty of other New Zealand snacks and locally made goodies we spotted along the way that are worth adding to your shopping list:

• Marmite
  • Marmite is one of those classic New Zealand pantry items that people tend to either love or strongly avoid. This dark yeast spread is usually eaten thinly spread on toast, crackers, or sandwiches, and it makes an easy, lightweight souvenir if you want to bring home something truly Kiwi.
• Chocolate Fish
  • Chocolate Fish are another nostalgic New Zealand sweet worth looking out for. They’re usually made with a soft marshmallow centre covered in chocolate, making them a fun and easy-to-pack treat for anyone with a sweet tooth.
• Jaffas
  • Jaffas are small orange-flavored chocolate sweets with a hard candy shell. They’re especially tied to Kiwi cinema snack culture, making them a fun supermarket souvenir if you want something small, nostalgic, and very easy to throw into your bag.
• Anzac Biscuits
  • Anzac biscuits are a classic New Zealand and Australian treat made with ingredients like oats, coconut, golden syrup, and butter. They travel better than many softer baked goods, making them a good option if you want something more biscuit-like to bring home.
• New Zealand Olive Oil
  • New Zealand olive oil is another good gift option, especially if you’re visiting regions known for local produce. It’s more practical than a novelty souvenir, and it’s the kind of thing you can actually use when you get home.
• Local Jams & Preserves
  • Jams, preserves, and fruit spreads are easy souvenirs to look for in supermarkets, farm shops, and local markets. Keep an eye out for New Zealand flavors like feijoa, kiwifruit, berry, or plum if you want something that feels more specific to the country.
• New Zealand Sea Salt
  • A small jar or packet of New Zealand sea salt makes a simple but thoughtful souvenir, especially for anyone who likes cooking. It’s lightweight, practical, and much easier to pack than anything fragile or perishable.
• Coffee Beans
  • New Zealand has a strong coffee culture, so a bag of locally roasted coffee beans can be a great souvenir if you want something you’ll actually use. Look for roasters in the cities you visit, or pick up a bag from an independent café you loved along the way.
• Local Chutneys & Sauces
  • If you’re browsing farmers markets, food shops, or independent grocers, look out for local chutneys, relishes, hot sauces, and savoury preserves. These make especially good gifts for food lovers, and they’re a nice way to bring home flavors from smaller New Zealand producers.

Where To Buy New Zealand Souvenirs

Your first instinct might be to wait until you get to duty free at the airport, but after travelling around New Zealand, we quickly learned that isn’t always the best option.

In fact, some of the best places to buy New Zealand snacks and food souvenirs are the same places locals shop every week.

Supermarkets

The best place we found for buying food souvenirs in New Zealand was actually the supermarket.

The answer came to us when we finally located the elusive L&P Whittaker’s Chocolate. From then on, we realized that the best prices for food goods in New Zealand is in a warehouse-style grocery store called Pak’n’Save.

It’s wholly Kiwi owned and operated and hard to miss with their giant yellow warehouses in most major cities. In a lot of ways, it reminded us of Costco except it’s not membership based and not necessarily bulk packaging.

Why Shop At Pak’N’Save?

• Great prices on everyday New Zealand snacks and packaged goods
• A huge selection of L&P Whittaker’s Chocolate flavors, including some that can be harder to find. Originally it used to be the only place you could get Whittaker’s!
• Easy place to stock up on treats like Pineapple Lumps, Chocolate Fish, Jaffas, and other Kiwi classics
• They carry Manuka honey, and compared to the duty free prices we saw, supermarket prices were much cheaper (you can’t beat NZ$13.99 for 250g)

Local Markets And Independent Food Shops

If you’re looking for something a little more unique, keep an eye out for farmers markets and independent food shops during your trip.

These are great places to find smaller New Zealand producers selling things like locally made jams, chutneys, sauces, olive oils, coffee, and other foodie gifts you might not find in bigger stores.

You can often find incredible locally made crafts such as, scarves, necklaces, traditional pendants, face masks and hand-made soaps – All of which make a great New Zealand gift to bring home to family.

Airport And Duty-Free Shops

Airport shops and duty free are convenient for last-minute purchases, especially if you forgot to leave room in your suitcase or want to pick up a final bottle of New Zealand wine from their amazing wineries before flying home.

Just keep in mind that convenience usually comes with higher prices, so if there are specific snacks or gifts you know you want, it’s worth grabbing them before you get to the airport.

Tips For Bringing Food Souvenirs Home From New Zealand

Before you fill every spare inch of your suitcase with Whittaker’s Chocolate and Manuka honey, there are a few things to keep in mind when packing food souvenirs from New Zealand:

• Check your destination’s customs rules
  • While most packaged snacks and treats are easy to travel with, every country has different rules on what food products you can bring through customs.
  • Before buying anything expensive, especially honey, fresh food, dairy products, or anything homemade, check your destination’s current restrictions so you don’t have to leave your carefully chosen souvenirs behind at the airport.
• Keep things sealed
  • As tempting as it is to sample everything before you leave, it’s best to keep anything you’re bringing home sealed in its original packaging.
  • Unopened, commercially packaged food items are usually much easier to travel with, and keeping labels intact can help if you need to declare anything when you arrive.
• Think About Weight And Liquids
  • It’s surprisingly easy for food souvenirs to take up more suitcase space (and weight!) than expected, especially when you start adding jars, bottles, and multiple blocks of chocolate. So think twice before wrapping up that extra bottle of pinot noir or sauvignon blanc!
  • If you’re travelling carry-on only, remember that liquids and gels may be restricted, so things like honey, sauces, oils, and spreads are usually better packed in checked luggage.
  • For lighter souvenirs, stick with easy-to-pack options like chocolate, candy, biscuits, coffee beans, and other dry goods.

Bring Home A Taste Of New Zealand

Forget the usual magnets, t-shirts, and tourist souvenirs. Some of the best gifts to bring home from New Zealand are the ones you can actually eat!

From iconic Kiwi treats like Whittaker’s Chocolate and Pineapple Lumps to world-famous Manuka honey, local wine, and other delicious food finds, these New Zealand souvenirs let you share a taste of your trip with friends and family.

Whether you’re shopping in supermarkets, browsing local markets, or making a last-minute airport stop, this guide will help you find the best New Zealand snacks and food gifts worth saving room for in your suitcase.

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So that’s it for this top 5 list of the top things to buy in New Zealand when it comes to food souvenirs. If you’ve been to New Zealand, what are your favorite foods that make good souvenirs? For us, ginger beer didn’t quite make the cut to the list but was another thing that we were fascinated with. Drop a comment below!

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