An 18-month-long ground breaking clinical trial investigating the health benefits of deer milk shows it improves muscle mass and bone density in older adults.

Government-owned farming company Pāmu, along with a South Island farming couple, milk 300 deer - 200 in Southland and 100 on the Central Plateau.

Pāmu has been pursuing deer milk as a viable dairy product for many years and deer business lead Hamish Glendinning said scientifically proving the nutritional benefits was vital when building market demand for New Zealand deer milk.

A new clinical trial was set up in conjunction with Massey University in June 2021.

One hundred and 20 female participants took part in the trial. Half consumed deer milk daily and half consumed a market leading oral nutritional supplement.

"So it's fairly comprehensive in terms of all of the results that we've generated. Going into the study we were hoping that the milk would, I guess, provide the same benefits, if not better, than the oral nutritional supplement.

"And this is a product that's been around for over 100 years and is very well known and we were stoked to see that deer milk did compete and out-perform in some areas, and the areas that it did out-perform was really around muscle strength... and that's all around the protein, high protein. Then also bone strength - that's related to the high calcium levels in deer milk.

"Two really interesting areas that we'll look to delve into in a bit more detail with future work, but it's positioning us really nicely in that age-nutrition space," he said.

Some of the company's products. Photo: Supplied / Pamu

Glendinning said the aim was to build an industry which increased revenue streams for deer farmers and New Zealand.

He said success so far had been built on the novelty aspect in a particular food space.

The business needed to prove to consumers that the milk would give them something they could not get from other products. For that reason clinical trials would continue, he said.

"In that nutrition space, in a growing ageing population, there is massive opportunity there. And so we think with a natural solution, like the milk, high protein, high in calcium and which is an A2-type protein, we think there's a really neat value proposition there.

"It's just about aligning the science with the right type of customer so we can really build some some scalable demand," he said.

Currently deer milk is sold in powder form and exported to multiple markets with Vietnam being the largest. There is also cross commerce into China, while some goes to Australia and Japan.

Glendinning said they see the milking deer herd increasing in size in New Zealand.

"Once we get it to a stage where we've built a market, where we've built demand, then absolutely it would be us having conversations and sharing some of that knowledge and getting others on board. The question remains as to I guess how big it will be," he said.

Glendinning said milking deer were like pets once they got used to their surroundings, and the five- month-long milking season was about half way through.

New Zealand's deer milk won the best dairy ingredient at last year's World Dairy Innovation awards in France.

Republished by arrangement