Deer farmers hit by a year of disrupted venison exports are pinning their hopes on a rebounding seasonal European market to buy their premium chilled product.

The pandemic stopped venison sales to restaurants for a year, but now as the new seasonal market has begun, “the last thing needed” was a hold up waiting for venison to be unloaded for a week in a port somewhere, the NZ Deer Farmers Association chairman, John Somerville said. 

A new focus was [also] on developing the high-end restaurant trade in China where there was potential for market growth in huge cities, he said.

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However, while velvet prices (at $105 plus) a kg looked good, the European venison chilled market returns of up to $7.40 a kg were $2-$3 a kg “short of the mark,” he said.

Rabobank manager, John Lumsden commented that a sustainable return for venison was required to provide sufficient resilience to withstand financial volatility. Consumption of food and agricultural products in general would drop if Western countries went in to a “full-blown recession,” he said.

NZ Farm-gate venison prices were about 21 per cent lower than the five-year average. Returns had improved but farmers say they were “much too low to be sustainable.” 

Photo: NZ Venison

Ardlussa deer farmer, Mike Wilkins identified that stockpiled frozen venison had been sold at a discount price of $6.50 a kg to China to get the volume of product moving through winter, creating a price squeeze at a time when farming costs were rising.

He expects there will be an improvement in venison prices judging by the strength of beef and lamb prices.

A boom in prices paid for old season lamb fetching $9 a kg, meant sheep farming was offering higher returns but it was premature for deer farmers to replace red deer with sheep even although some were diversifying.

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“There is a light at the end of the tunnel for deer farmers. They need confidence to get through,” according to Gore Agricultural consultant, Graham Butcher.

“It is not just about cents per kilo of dry matter eaten,” he told farmers at a recent workshop in Otautau. 

“Farmers have taken a real hiding but I am reasonably optimistic the venison market will rebound.”

He said supermarket sales got the sheep and beef industry through Covid-19 but retail consumers were not as confident about buying venison for home cooking.

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Deer Industry NZ (DINZ) deputy chairman, Gerard Hicky highlighted the development of new retail venison markets as being the silver-lining of the pandemic. 

He predicts the industry will recover but it will take time for the change in the direction of marketing to bear fruit. 

Farm-raised venison promoted to consumers in retail stores and new online sales platforms started with the launch of ground venison in the U.S. followed by higher value products such as meatballs and medallions are part of a DINZ $1million retail marketing drive. 

The NZDFA also remained optimistic about the industry overcoming its current setbacks, citing the restart of the lucrative export of certified venison bones to China as a positive step forward.