This paper raises concern for the situated nature of knowledge production in relation to food politics.  Investigating geographies of food sovereignty and food security requires attention to where and how different contexts set the stage for specific discourses related to food and eating come into existence.  This paper specifically examines how the concept of food sovereignty is troubled in New Zealand due to the role of the dairy industry in the global economy, the pervasive branding of New Zealand as ‘pure’, and the politics of sovereignty within a multicultural former British colony.  Bringing these concerns to the fore enables an exploration of the web of assemblages that comprise the political projects of outward focused government policies and the inward focused mundane politics of eating.