Hawke’s Bay meat company Matangi expanding to lamb

Nicky and Jamie Gaddum at Matangi's Hastings butchery. Photo / Matangi

By RNZ

A boutique Hawke’s Bay meat company known for its Angus beef is expanding its offers to include Kiwi lamb finished on chicory.

Matangi, which has two farms, began back in 2019 with the main goal of producing the best grass-fed Angus beef for the domestic market.

Farm manager Jamie Gaddum said since then sales have been on the rise, with beef going directly to some of the top restaurants in the country and being sold online and through the company’s butchery in Hastings.

He said they have always run a few thousand ewes so are now expanding into lamb.

“Our farms are perfect for sheep and beef and we’ve always had sheep in the background as a key part of managing the pastures, they’ve just always gone to the commercial market. In the back of my mind I’ve always wanted to expand into lamb.

“People have been asking for it but we’ve been holding off because I wanted to get the breeding right. I’ve got rams that have a measured marbling score to them and I wanted to get the tenderness right before we started pushing lamb.”

Gaddum said the lamb was finished on chicory for at least 35 days.

“This produces leaner, more flavourful, and incredibly tender lamb, which makes it stand out and is why it’s mainly used to finish export-bound lamb.

“At the moment we are starting small by processing 15 lambs a week and so far the feedback has been really positive,” he said.

“We’re trying to make our own market really, I think we rely so heavily on overseas markets as farmers, it’s nice to be able to demand a price for the quality that we provide rather than just putting quantity out the gate and we also get a lot of feedback from our clients which is really cool.”

- RNZ