Mark Essig Photo: John Fletcher
The majority of the 20 kilograms of pork the average New Zealander eats every year is imported from overseas.
Most of it is brought into the country frozen and processed into hams, bacon, salami and sausages.
It illustrates how pork has become a global commodity – a process that started with the pig's domestication by humans hundreds of years ago.
Mark Essig, the author of Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig, talks to Simon Morton.
