Venison, lamb ventures targeting wealthy consumers win $41m of funding

Two projects to develop premium markets for New Zealand venison and lamb have won a total of $41 million in government and industry co-funding under the Primary Growth Partnership.

'Passion2Profit' has been awarded $16 million to help develop new markets for chilled venison and for deer farmers to become more productive and profitable. The Ministry for Primary Industries, which coordinates the PGP programme, is providing almost $7.4 million with industry body, Deer Industry New Zealand and its partners providing the rest.

The other project, 'Targeting New Wealth with High Health', gets $25 million over seven years to reach existing and emerging markets with a new class of premium lamb products with improved health qualities. These include lower levels of saturated fat and higher levels of polyunsaturated fat and healthy omega-3 oils. Half of the funding will come from MPI.

The PGP aims to boost the value, productivity and profitability of the primary sector through investment between government and industry. It currently has 18 long-term programmes underway which have a total of about $720 million of co-investements.

Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy said Passion2Profit will enable New Zealand venison producers to supply premium chilled venison to domestic and overseas markets, in particular Europe.

"Traditionally, New Zealand has relied on European market demand for mostly frozen venison products," Guy said. "This demand has been seasonal and places pressure on our venison industry. Passion2Profit aims to deliver economic benefits of $56 million per year in additional industry revenue by the end of the programme."

'Targeting New Wealth with High Health' is also set to deliver significant economic benefits, raising the value and profitability of New Zealand lamb products, he said.

A collaboration with Alliance Group and Headwaters New Zealand, the programme aims to develop new production, processing and marketing techniques that could be extended to other industries, allowing them to leverage access to new markets.

The government has set a goal of doubling the value of primary sector exports by 2025.

A New Zealand Institute of Economic Research report last year estimated the PGP will add $6.4 billion per annum to New Zealand's economy by 2025. Two programmes have been completed to date - one researching alternative ways of fumigating logs and other primary sector imports and exports, and the Stumps to Pump PGP programme led by Norske Skog Tasman and Z Energy, which investigated how to generate more value from forestry waste by converting it to liquid biofuels.

(BusinessDesk)