Derelict farm to premium Angus beef: Danbri Farm’s regenerative journey

Carl Eb and Deborah Pead wanted their beef to die where it lived and customers to taste the difference. But before the launch of the Danbri Farm premium meat brand, they dealt with a house fire, a heart health scare – and the hard work of achieving on-farm harvest approvals. Kim Knight and Michael Craig visited the Kaipara District family business that wants to change the way we eat meat.

The moment Carl Eb saw the farm, he knew.

“It was in the most appalling condition. There were literally no fences. The front entrance, where the cattleyard was, was a tip. Old fridges and cars. A mound of barbed wire. There was blackberry everywhere. It was in a terrible state.”

And yet: “Some properties talk to you.”

In 2002, the man who once trained race horses in South Africa bought a derelict farm in the hills above Kaipara Harbour.

Then he phoned his wife.

“I said to her, ‘I’m going to sign the documents’. And she used some rather expressive language!”

Eb is married to Deborah Pead, the public relations powerhouse whose recent pro bono claims to fame include wresting the record for the world’s largest haka from the French.

She remembers that phone call from her husband.

“The thing you were trying to convince me was that it had potential. It wasn’t finished. It was raw. You could see all the stuff that we needed to do. I remember it clearly, because I was like ‘I want a finished farm!’”

Last month, the 121ha property hit a milestone. Naturally, there was a PR-approved statement: “Danbri Farm, a family-run regenerative property, has launched its premium Angus beef brand, the result of thoughtful innovation, deep respect for animals, and a belief that New Zealand’s best meat can also be its most humane.”

Danbri is one of a handful of local farms meeting the regulatory standards required to harvest and sell its meat directly to the public.

There are no trucks to slaughter; no processing of the carcasses along a meatworks chain. Instead, animals are killed on the farm and transferred immediately to a Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) approved mobile abattoir.

Farmers have always filled their own freezers. But while many use a mobile homekill service provider, they are not MPI-audited operations and it is illegal to trade or sell that meat.

At Danbri, slaughter protocol is dictated by a registered Risk Management Programme that includes veterinarian or meat inspector checks of the animal before its death, and again in its eviscerated state inside the mobile abattoir.

The abattoir on wheels, developed by Waikato-based Earth First Foods, is currently the only one of its kind in the country (its prototype went to Nadia Lim and Carlos Bagrie’s Royalburn Station where it contributed to the proof of concept needed to establish a permanent on-farm micro-abattoir and butchery that processes several thousand lambs a year).

The meat industry acknowledges transport can cause animals significant distress. Science says stress can affect beef quality, altering pH levels and causing meat to discolour, firm up, hold fluid and become more prone to spoilage. Advocates of the paddock-to-plate approach say meat killed on-farm tastes better – and it allows farmers to keep more profit on their properties.

New Zealand’s beef herd comprises about 3.6 million animals. At Danbri, they run 152 head (including two bulls). Last year, the country’s meat producers sent 2.2 million cattle to slaughter. Danbri’s first public offering comprised just two beasts. This is not meat-to-the-masses – but for consumers with the financial means to know exactly where and how their slow-cooked brisket lived (and died), it is another option.

James Birch shifts in-calf Angus cows on to fresh pasture at Danbri Farm. Photo / Michael Craig

“Hup-hup-hup! Way you go, way you go!”

On a sunny Wednesday in rural Paparoa, Eb and his son-in-law James Birch are shifting a mixed-age breeding herd to greener pastures. The cows loop their tongues around the grass, enthusiastically scything it clear of the paddock. Every one of these animals is in-calf and the sound of them tearing into fresh feed en masse is, to this city-based observer, slightly unnerving.

“They’ll finish this in a day,” says Birch, a 36-year-old former business development manager for Blunt Umbrellas who came to Paparoa for an extended stay during an early Covid lockdown.

“I made good money and I loved what I was doing. I didn’t realise I’d love this more. Carl and Deb were looking for someone to help out and I was like ‘s***, I’ll give it a go’.”

He married their daughter Brittany on this farm. Their 3-year-old son Henry hunts for dinosaurs in its regenerating bush blocks. And, last year, he was out fencing with Eb when he noticed the now 70-year-old was not in his customary lead position.

Eb: “At first I thought, ‘I must stop eating that Colman’s hot english mustard’.”

He self-diagnosed heartburn but, back at the house, picked up a weedeater and realised he couldn’t breathe properly.

“They cut you open from here,” he says, gesturing to the top of his chest. “And then they stitch you with steel wire.”

For eight weeks after his triple heart bypass, Eb recuperated in Auckland. Farmers, he was warned, are in too much of a hurry to get back to work – jumping a fence had sent one impatient soul back to ICU for three weeks and hospital for a further six.

“I said, ‘I promise you, I am not going to mess this one up. I’m not going through this kerfuffle again’.”

When Carl Eb fenced this Danbri Farm paddock, he left two of its original gate posts as a tribute to the hard work of early farmers. Photo / Michael Craig

Full disclosure. I’ve known Pead and Eb socially for more than a decade. But this is my first visit to the farm; the first time I’ve witnessed Eb truly in his element.

“I actually enjoy working,” he says. “I’ve seen too many people retire and go mad.”

Also: “If you stay in Auckland too long, you think, ‘oh, I’ll just go and look at Rodd & Gunn’ and you end up buying something you really don’t need.”

In June, Rabobank released a paper called Changing of the Guard. It revealed that over the next decade, more than half of the country’s farm and orchard owners would hit retirement age. Their businesses were, conservatively, valued at more than $150 billion, but only one in three was likely to have a formal succession plan. Other research shows that while one-third of local farmers intend to pass land to their children, almost 40% of those children have no serious interest in becoming farmers.

Eb and Pead’s kids are in Danbri’s DNA. The property is named for their children; a portmanteau of Daniel and Brittany (“we do hear a few Donburis,” says the latter, wryly). And it’s that next generation driving a change to regenerative farming practices.

“We want to show more farmers, especially in Kaipara, that this is possible,” says Birch. “If more of us move in this direction, we can elevate the reputation of meat from this region and lift the entire rural community.”

The Herald’s visit traverses bee hives, flocks of free-range chickens and seven long rows of newly planted fruit and nut trees. Waikopikopiko Stream has been fenced and banks replanted with funding help from Kaipara Moana Remediation. Existing bush blocks have also been fenced to keep cattle out, stabilise the land, and reduce sediment run-off into the nearby harbour (visiting kererū and tūī are a bonus).

Stream fencing and replanting at Danbri Farm has been completed with funding assistance from Kaipara Moana Remediation. Photo / Michael Craig

Paddocks once sown with traditional clover and rye now grow up to 24 different types of seed. Cover crops (such as oats and fava beans) send roots that fix nitrogen in the soil. A Biosea product has replaced urea. Success is measured by the depth of the topsoil; inspiration is the neighbour who grew his paddocks 30cm in 10 years with no fertiliser.

Eb: “If you keep your soil healthy and don’t overgraze it, don’t pug it, don’t damage it, it will reward you. The most important worker in this world is the earthworm.”

He nudges a cowpat with his foot.

“If that goes within two weeks, you must know there’s activity underneath. Somebody is doing something and taking it for its dinner.”

Birch adds: “Daniel is a big advocate of the regenerative stuff. And the more we do, the more Carl sees how successful it is, he’s becoming even more forward-thinking. He definitely needed us to push in that direction, but Carl is the man on the farm. He has been here the longest, he knows the land better than anyone, so we’ve also got to listen to him. We need the new ideas, but we also need a bit of guidance on the land.”

Eb and Pead met in South Africa. The children of immigrant parents would, in turn, become immigrants themselves, moving to New Zealand 30 years ago. For them, the farm was a chance to put down serious roots. They relocated an 1885 Parnell worker’s cottage to the property – and then they built the forever home.

“You go to Europe and you see families living in these 300-year-old farms, passed down from one generation to the next,” says Pead.

“When you build a family home that is going to be intergenerational, it’s going to be built to last. So we went all out. It was absolutely beautiful. You know, new homes sit on the land, but after a while, they become part of the land. And she was just starting to become part of the land...”

Her Instagram grid is blue and green and bright. Sunshine, swimming pools and verdant landscapes. Two beautiful grandchildren, friends and fabulous holidays. In October, 2022, there was an outlier. Twisted metal and broken glass – the dream house burned almost to the ground.

The extended Danbri family was on holiday in Fiji. Back home, says Pead, a power surge had caused wiring to short in a utilities room.

“It’s hard to comprehend losing everything in a fire,” she wrote. “The things that can be replaced are easy to deal with. It’s those treasures collected over a lifetime and the precious family mementos that tell the story of where we started in life and the journey along the way that we grieve over the most.”

Deborah Pead, founder and chairwoman of Pead, the PR company that has financially supported Danbri's growth. Photo / Michael Craig

She pulls a lunchtime brisket out of the tiny kitchen in the temporary living quarters that were created in a shed that used to house a tractor and kennels. The Danbri dogs are a small and energetic mass of Jack Russells and their matriarch was the formidably named Tilly Tuppence Piddles Pisspot.

When the rest of the pack went out for the night, Tilly would slink behind the couch; a grande dame with special indoor privileges.

“Large and in charge,” says Pead. “We used to say she was big boned, but a lot of other people said no, she was just overweight. She was a strong girl.”

Tilly initially escaped the fire but, at some point, returned to the house. Her body was recovered from the master bedroom.

“I know she went back to find us.”

Tilly now takes centre stage on the Danbri Farm logo, which adorns the meat boxes that finally hit the market last month.

“We had a few detours on the way,” said Pead, playing her understatement for laughs at a launch in her downtown Auckland offices. The farmers wore chinos, Cazador’s Dariush Lolaiy cooked the steaks and, outside, howling winds threatened to close the harbour bridge.

Chef Dariush Lolaiy grilling Danbri Farm beef at the launch of the new brand.

When the barbecue smoke and sizzle drifted through the atrium and set off the fire alarms, guests trooped down two flights of stairs and into the tempest. They paused to collect a canape on the landing – beef tartare, perfectly paired with a pinot noir that, according to the label on the bottle, had “more grunt than a Danbri bull”.

This moment had been so long coming. What was another 20 minutes?

“We had two fundamental goals we needed to reach before we were going to put our name on a brand,” said Pead. “All our cattle would be born and raised on regenerative agricultural pastures. And we were only prepared to brand our beef when we could deliver a humane, on-farm harvest.”

Because, she said “farmers love their land – and they love their animals”.

Delays – Covid, health emergencies, the fire – gave Danbri time to get its regenerative programme underway, and find Earth First Foods and utilise the mobile abattoir that cuts out the need to send animals to a meatworks. Danbri Farm’s beef joins a tiny list of brands (including Royalburn, Wholly Cow, Juniper Hill, Ellis Creek and Poaka Farm) able to harvest on-farm meat for sale to the public.

“This isn’t just a brand launch,” said Pead. “It’s also about us putting our voice to a movement. We’re not expecting it to change overnight, we know it takes time – it took time for free-range eggs to gain their momentum. It’s hard to do and it’s certainly not cheap, but we know it’s the right thing and we are going to do that.”

She paused and smiled at her grandson, who had wandered to the front of the room. “Hello, darling,” she said, hoisting him to her hip.

OECD figures show New Zealand’s meat consumption is in decline. In 2024, our per capita intake was 49kg (comprising 8.5kg of beef and veal, 16kg of pork, 24.5kg of poultry and 2kg of sheep). Twenty years ago, we were eating 69.5kg, including 19kg of beef and veal. Analysts point to a range of contributing factors, including price, consumer preference and increasing interest in vegetarian and vegan diets.

The two Angus beef cattle who will comprise the August on-farm harvest at Danbri Farm. Photo / Michael Craig

At Danbri, calving will begin any day. It will be another two years before the August-born animals are ready to eat. Currently, Mapari Meats is preparing the beef that goes into the farm’s direct-to-customer boxes that sell from $105 (mince and sausages) to $215 (T-bone, scotch, et al). Ōrewa-based butchery Marrow has just come on board as a stockist; Auckland restaurants are taking an interest (Tacoteca’s Auckland Restaurant Month menu includes Danbri-bred beef tongue).

Our farm tour ends, inevitably, at the end. The two beasts destined for August meat boxes have no idea what’s coming. They’re grazing on a hill above the spot where, one day, an abattoir will roll in, and they will be slaughtered simultaneously, dying on the farm where they were born and bred.

The lead-up, says Birch, is worse than the moment itself.

“Once you’ve done it, you know the reasons for doing it. Delivering it to people and seeing how much they valued the meat, knowing they were harvested on-farm, and they’ve gone to homes that appreciate them. They weren’t just getting lost in a system. It felt quite good, actually.”

Kim Knight is a senior journalist on the New Zealand Herald’s lifestyle desk. She holds a Master’s in Gastronomy from AUT and was the 2025 recipient of the Gordon McLauchlan Journalism Award at the Voyager Media Awards.