Chef's Pencil has released a new report today on the most popular international cuisines in New Zealand.

The report is based on Google Trends data, a reliable source of consumer trends data. What is unique about the data is that it doesn’t only indicate New Zealanders dining out habits. It also shows what New Zealanders are eating at home.

Google provides data on a whole range of topics, including national cuisines, and allocates a score that indicates the level of interest in the topic. For example, Japanese cuisine will comprise hundreds or thousands of searches related to the topic such as Japanese restaurants, Japanese rice, sushi, sushi recipes, and even names of well-known local Japanese restaurants.

Google then counts how often they are used in countries, regional areas, towns and cities relative to all local searches and allocates a popularity score. For example, if Christchurch scores 100 for Indian cuisine and Auckland scores 80, it doesn't mean more searches were done in Christchurch than in Auckland; it means a higher percentage of people in Christchurch than in Auckland are into Indian cuisine.

Top 5 international cuisines according to Google Trends:

1. Thai (Google Trends Score: 78)
2. Indian (Google Trends Score: 51)
3. Chinese (Google Trends Score: 49)
4. Italian (Google Trends Score: 31)
5. Japanese (Google Trends Score: 30)

See full rankings in our report: https://www.chefspencil.com/most-popular-international-cuisines-in-new-zealand/

Local Stats:

The following regions are regarded by Google as the most popular for each of the top 5 ethnic cuisines:

• Canterbury is New Zealand's top region of Thai cuisine
• Hawkey's Bay is New Zealand's top region of Indian cuisine
• Canterbury is New Zealand's top region of Chinese cuisine
• Wellington is New Zealand's top region of Italian cuisine
• Auckland is New Zealand's top region of Japanese cuisine

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