Nostalgia is one of the greatest of marketing hooks, especially where food is concerned, simply because food is at the heart of our identity, as a nation, and as individuals.

So why are our grocery producers ignoring the obvious opportunities to give us the sort of packaging and long term brand identity products that represent the essence of what makes classic car nuts so obsessive?

Where, for example, is the classic Marmite jar of the 1940s, glass and fluted, with an original label design, that could take pride of place in the pantry (we don't do kitchen cupboards any more, which is why classic versions would attract extra spend by consumers). Or a Weetbix offer that contained swappable cards of heroes or fighter planes, or even sports stars in this Olympic year.

Trading in memories is such a cool activity, as can be seen by the huge enthusiasm for second-hand stores (better than antique shops, apparently) with their random selections of 50-year-old crockery and quaint kitchen utensils. While some of us are trying to forget the 1970s, our kids are paying good money for the plates that once graced our student flats.

So can we please have Wattie's tomato sauce bottle in real glass with the original fluting and a 1950s' label. We can pay through the nose to remember, and can then replenish with sauce from the can. I imagine that Wattie's train smash remains the same as it was back when.

And instead of all those highly expensive television advertisements attempting to plunge us deep into grocery nostalgia, can we please have some plausible, touchable, usable nostalgia that we can actually share? Or even some future nostalgia?

With plastic we can do anything. So perhaps we should be creating tomato sauce nostalgia for future generations. So how about the All Blacks of '11 tomato sauce bottles? What could be more Kiwi than to squirt Wattie’s tomato sauce from the Richie McCaw bottle onto French fries?

Or, if our food producers are really interested in creating tomorrow's memories and, market strength, how about something that represents the food revolution that tastes almost as good from a can. Duck confit, perhaps? Mutton bird for those in love with Kiwi?

Imagine the market for clean, green, organic New Zealand duck confit in smart grocery stores in New Caledonia, California, Japan. Hell, it could be the food sensation for China's new age of foodies. And we could all fall in love with it here, where it really counts.

Come on food producers, get with the programme. Get into food like your consumers do.