We employ regenerative farming principles to help us produce nutritious and tasty food for families, couples and friends in our community.
We focus on building soil health, strive for the highest animal welfare and use holistic grazing and biological fertility management to ensure our livestock have a positive impact on our land and community.
We invite you to read more about how we are partnering with our community to optimise life & well-being in our communities and our ecosystems.
We launched our ‘Meat Boxes’ in October 2016 to make our produce available in a convenient and affordable way.
It is our aim to provide over 300 kiwi families with nutritious, quality produce that they can trust, as well as providing the financial stability we need to continue our landscape restoration and improving our produce.
We have a range of Meat Boxes available to be purchased from our online Farm Shop, that are couriered direct to your door, on the 2nd or 4th week of each month.
Options
You can choose the best box and delivery frequency to suit your needs! Our main products are mixes of beef, lamb and pork which come as ‘Big’ or ‘Little’ boxes. We also have straight Lamb or Beef boxes available, and seasonal Xmas hams.
Delivery
All meat boxes are frozen prior to delivery and stay chilled for up to 24 hours from pick up, with all cuts safely & individually vacuum packed and sealed. If your meat has partly defrosted when it arrives you can safely refreeze it with no detriment to the quality of the meat!
The process in 7 simple steps:
Our lovely Rachel & Anna are here to help if you need : )
- Order a meat box from our online Farm Shop (you can also choose a ‘subscription’ meat box which is automatically delivered monthly).
- Select whether you prefer delivery on the 2nd or 4th week of the month.
- Pay via PayPal as part of the ordering process, or via direct bank transfer after completing the order (you will receiving an email with an invoice and account details).
- Anna (our lovely administrator) will send you an email the Friday before delivery as a reminder (especially if you want to leave a chilly bin beside your front door).
- Your meat box will arrive via courier on Monday (within Hawke’s Bay) or Tuesday (outside Hawke’s Bay).
- Anna will send you another email on Tuesday with some simply
but tasty recipe ideas from Rachel, Anna and Emma! - If you ordered a subscription, your next meat box will arrive
automatically a month later.
If you order a one-off, you can order the next whenever you like! (We will send you a reminder email just in case)
Optimising Life
Healthy & nutritious food starts with soil.
A healthy soil with good structure, high organic matter and a thriving biology
is what ensures high rates of nutrient and mineral cycling, good rainfall infiltration and storage, deep and expansive plant roots, and minimal soil erosion or compaction.
This allows for healthy plants with good access to water, nutrients and minerals to grow abundantly and provide quality nutrition to the sheep, cattle, pigs and chickens that we raise wholly or mostly on pasture. The minerals contained in the plants are absorbed by the animals, promoting healthy and happy animals, with excesses stored in the fats, bones and internal organs.
We ensure our plants and animals have the minerals they need by testing our soils across the farm and supplementing any deficiencies through our biological fertiliser program, as well as providing them directly via self-selecting animal feeders – they know what they need!
So by focusing on healthy soils we grow healthy plants and healthy animals, thereby increasing the nutritional quality of our meat and the health of the people that eat it.
Pasture diversity
Different pasture species uptake different nutrients and minerals more effectively. Our goal is to steadily continue to increase the diversity of pasture species that our animals are grazing, allowing them to selectively graze the species that they need during different times of the year and contributing to the nutritional quality of the meat.
Consequently (there’s a theme building here) pasture diversity is not only good for the animals, but different plants also have different root structures, microbial associations and growing seasons, therefore promoting healthy and biologically active soils that sequester carbon and become increasingly productive!
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Stress-free farming
There is increasing evidence of the positive impact of low-stress livestock management on animal health, growth rates and consequently the quality of milk and/or meat produced (we would do this even if it simply meant happy animals!).
Some of our key management practises to maximise the happiness of our animals include holistic planned grazing, which ensures animals are well fed and shifted onto fresh pastures regularly (for our cattle this means every day and they quickly learn to follow us to fresh grass rather than run away!), minimising yard time, and paying close attention to the health of our animals. While we try to minimise the external inputs onto the farm, we will treat animals for issues like infections or worms, and we are constantly looking for more ‘natural’ and effective remedies.
Happy animals also means happy farmers!
Breeding
Every breed of sheep, cattle or pigs has different genetic qualities, although there is usually significant variation within breeds too.
Our Texel-cross sheep are tender and tasty, with the breed being frequent winners of the Golden Lamb awards (Glammies). They are also known for their good fertility, as well as having less wool on their bellies which keeps them clean and healthy.
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Our Angus cattle are a popular breed for premium beef producers, with well-marbled fats throughout the meat. We raise mostly heifer (female) Angus cattle that are known to produce a very high quality of meat, with the added benefit of being small and light and therefore more gentle on our soils. They also have a gentle and fun nature!
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Our Berkshire pigs are a heritage breed with a renowned fat to meat ratio meaning super tasty pork and bacon! All our pigs are raised on a mix of milk (fresh from our dairy cows), grain and/or squash, and as much grass as they want to eat! Grass-fed free range pork is reportedly one of the highest sources of Vitamin D available, so eating it can be a guilt-free pleasure.
Becoming a ‘Friend the Farm’ gives you great discounts on our produce, last minute deals on Eco Lodge stays, keeps you up to date with how your food is produced and how we are investing the returns back into the land.
By ordering a ‘subscription’ meat box you automatically become a Friend of the Farm!
If you are ordering a one-off meat box simply add ‘Friend the Farm’ to your cart with your first meat box – the annual $20 fee will go directly to food forest planting near the Eco Lodge.