The Urban Monk

The Christchurch earthquakes opened up the opportunity for enterprising start-ups, many of them environmental in focus, and on Boxing Day, 2012 we launched The Urban Monk as a Facebook page. We registered The Urban Monk as a company in 2014 and in 2015 we launched our special range of cultured vegetables. Since that first little box we sold in Christchurch, we are now all over the country – you can buy our range of krauts from Auckland to Dunedin!

What Makes Urban Monk Krauts So Special?

• Urban Monk is the only maker of locally produced and certified organic fermented vegetables in New Zealand.
• Urban Monk cultured vegetables are guaranteed vegan. – We do not use a starter culture. (Starter cultures are sometimes derived from dairy.)
• With Urban Monk krauts, you are guaranteed to receive ALL the nourishing goodness a cultured vegetable can offer. – We do not pasteurise!
• We use only the best ingredients. – Did we mention the Himalayan rock salt? It’s pink!
• Urban Monk’s philosophy embraces simplicity and a minimal environmental footprint every step of the way. – Our products are hand-crafted and our vegetables are sourced as locally as possible.
• Urban Monk’s philosophy places value on people and social justice. – We support local growers, and wherever possible our spices are sourced from Trade Aid.
• We offer a number of unique flavours of sauerkraut, based on our own lovingly perfected recipes.
• Sauerkraut and beyond! – In addition to our several flavours of sauerkraut, we offer a range of unique non-cabbage based cultured vegetables, such as our Glorious Carrot & Ginger, our Blessed Beetroot and our newest recipe, the Eternal Onions, with more to come in the future…

We were so lucky to be able to start our food-making journey down at the very special Waihi Bush Organic Farm. We headed down to this family farm to live there part time, partly as a result of the quakes. Set on the fringes of ancient kahikatea forest – the only original piece of forest left on the Canterbury Plains – our food preparing premises, though humble, were truly divine.

However, with things starting to get a bit busier we shifted the business up to Christchurch in mid 2017. We are currently based in South New Brighton, by the seaside.