The province is aiming to put itself on the map nationally and internationally for premium food products.
Southland proudly produces dairy products, lamb, beef, fish, wild meat, oysters, honey, carrots, grain, potatoes, cabbages and swedes.
An oat milk factory is being planned.
Great South food and beverage manager Mary-Anne Webber said the province had the most abundant food bowl in New Zealand.
"I think we are allowed to say that because we’re from Southland and we’re biased."
Invercargill’s new Southern Pioneers Food Hub intended to play a pivotal role in boosting the economy and employment through adding value and attaching stories to locally produced food.
The hub, funded by the provincial growth fund, opened in April this year and featured a commercial kitchen, a space for seminars, research and development and for small-scale production.
"You name it, we’ll do anything to get products moving," hub co-founded Jane Stanton, also the owner of Invercargill’s Seriously Good Chocolate Company and its cafe, said.
"What I have always wanted to do is help people design products from the land, from the sea, especially from Southland to get the product to market, to design it, to get the flavours right."
Miele Honey owner Chris Fraser, who founded the hub with Mrs Stanton, said Southlanders tended to keep their food success stories to themselves.
"We’re a little bit understated ... we know [the food is] good but we don’t like standing on a soapbox and shouting about it.
"What I think it’s really about is taking those [food] champions and those great stories and taking our chance to promote them," he said.
"New Zealand makes a whole awesome range of primary products but we export so many in drums or in logs ... we’re just trying to add that extra value and give it a real Southland story and take it to the world."
Mrs Stanton said she was particularly interested in using by-products to create value for producers.
She had been working with Invercargill company Back Country Cuisine - known for its tramping meals - to freeze-dry grape skins.
"Pinot noir grape powder is fantastic in casseroles. It’s a replacement for kiwifruit for marinating meat. It tenderises and gives colour and flavour."
She had also been making pinot noir salt and pepper using sea salt that was now being produced at Bluff’s paua farm.
"We were looking for a sea salt for my chocolates and food and I thought, ‘why are we getting it from everywhere else when we can make our own?’," she said.
The oyster-coloured salt had a special local story, she said.
Other new products included a freeze-dried potato crumb and freeze-dried cheese, which Mrs Stanton said was perfect for making cheese rolls.
"We thought, for promotional purposes, to do a freeze-dried cheese that lasted, that people could take away and take a bit of Southland with them."
