Custard: More than just reviews

"Just what the world needs, a place for more people to share unqualified reviews" is a comment I had on an Instagram post. Trust me, I get it (and you're not wrong). Reviews are relative to people and what they're looking for. If your mum hates spicy food, she's naturally going to struggle to rate something 5 stars if it's spicy - because what she's looking for is just different. So why then, I hear you ask, have we created a platform for people to do exactly that: post their "unqualified" reviews?

I'll give you a bit of backstory into Custard: I started getting fed up doing my weekly online shop. I was looking to try some sauerkraut and the best Google gave me was a Stuff article titled"Supermarket sleuth: Five of the best sauerkrauts for fans of ferments"(you can read ithereif your fancy is tickled). I ended up randomly choosing one and eventually tried a few others. Then I found myself wanting to try some buffalo wing sauce. This was in lockdown so stakes were high - takeaways weren't a fall-back option if I picked the wrong one. No results at all on this Google search unfortunately. I ended up playing it safe and going for the most expensive one (and even I know expensive doesn't always equal best but here we are). It worked out at the time but I've since found an NZ-owned alternative which is both cheaper and has none of those impossible-to-pronounce ingredients in it (it'sthis oneif you're wondering).

So I had a problem: How can I make more informed choices at the checkout? Yes, supermarkets could just start allowing reviews on their items and that would be a great start. But you'd still have the same problem the commented on my Instagram post had:

What defines a qualified vs an unqualified review?

I think the concept of qualified vs unqualified reviews is the entire reason that reviews are relative. What that really means, is do I care enough about that person's opinion to actually listen to it? Let's go through a scenario for example. If you were a beginner gardener looking for a tool to start you off would you be looking for the same tools as an expert gardener? What if you tried a tool and didn't like it because it was too complicated, but for someone else it would be exactly what they're looking for. Even restaurants for example - what is more important to you, service, food, or both? People will rate things depending on what's important to them.

Now I can't claim that this is something Custard solves for right now. But I can say that having real kiwis give real, independent reviews on an independent platform is a good step in the right direction. Custard isn't perfect, and we probably won't ever be (heck, you might even call us unqualified 😉). But I'd rather be working on a solution than sitting by and choosing sauerkraut based on a Stuff article just because one stranger on the internet told me so.