As she headed to Dunedin with a load of Christmas hams last week, Mrs McCallum-Jackson described the time of year as "just crazy".
Thursday night was "ham night" in the city, when she dispatched hams to Otago customers. She had learned not to do it on a Saturday when she once caused a traffic jam.
Mrs McCallum-Jackson endorsed a recent warning from NZPork for Christmas shoppers to be wary of poorly labelled imported ham.
Due to the lack of country of origin labelling in New Zealand, confusion was still rife over where ham was coming from.
"The majority of consumers prefer to buy New Zealand pork, bacon and ham. Our main concern is that these shoppers are simply not aware of where their ham came from.
"In the rush to get the Christmas shopping done, we're concerned that many New Zealanders may unintentionally end up with ham from imported meat," chief executive Sam McIvor said in a statement.
More than 700,000kg of imported pork products hit the shelves every week and there was no way to know where it was from.
"Your ham on Christmas Day could be from North America, Europe or Australia - without country of origin labelling, it's impossible to tell," Mr McIvor told the Otago Daily Times.
With the majority of imported product having significantly lower animal health and welfare standards than local producers, consumers made a "positive difference" by choosing New Zealand ham over imports.
The advice to those buying a last-minute ham was to ask retail staff for New Zealand-raised product and to look for the 100% New Zealand ham label.
