‘A win-win’: PF Olsen gifts 100kg of venison to Whanganui City Mission

Whanganui City Mission manager Dr Antony Nobbs (centre) accepts 100kg of venison gifted by Scott McIntosh (left) and Leigh Christensen of forestry company PF Olsen. Photo / Olivia Reid

Forestry company PF Olsen has gifted 100kg of venison to Whanganui’s City Mission, an action that gave free pest control to clients and will provide food to people in need.

Lower North Island territory manager Leigh Christensen said the company had been encouraging each territory to give back to the community.

Christensen met Whanganui City Mission manager Dr Antony Nobbs at a knife-making class in Wellington.

They hit it off when they realised they were both hunters and Nobbs asked that if Christensen ever had a spare animal, he donate it.

So, when Christensen faced the issue of deer as pests in his forestry work, he thought of Nobbs’ comment.

“One of the biggest issues for our clients around Whanganui and also Wairarapa is pests, mainly deer and goats, eating trees,” Christensen said.

“When trees are young, they’re really vulnerable and fallow deer will just eat them or pull them out of the ground for fun.

“Clients have to spend a lot on pest control before we plant trees.”

Usually the pest control is completed by professionals for health and safety reasons, but a few landowners were open to Christensen’s proposal and let him hunt on their properties.

“We had a Wairarapa forest owner that definitely supported this because it’s a good cause,” he said.

“It’s a win-win. It’s a win for the landowner, and it’s a win for the people who need help.”

Completing the task took a lot of effort, Christensen said, as they hunted on foot and carried the carcasses on their backs.

“This took us a long time, to be fair, because as staff we are doing this in our own time and I probably went out to one particular forest about 10 times,” he said.

“We have lots of properties that we manage but only one or two that were okay with us doing this.”

The community support did not stop with the landowners and PF Olsen’s lower North Island team.

“When Tom Short of Feilding Farm Meats heard about our plans, he kindly offered to process the 100kg of venison into 500g packets of mince at no cost,” Christensen said.

They chose to turn the meat into mince rather than providing meat cuts because of the challenge of cooking venison.

“You have to be careful when you’re cooking venison because it can dry out and not taste so good, so mince is the best option for people who haven’t cooked venison before because you can’t really get it wrong,” he said.

The 100kg of venison mince was presented to Nobbs at City Mission Whanganui on Friday, June 11, by Christensen and PF Olsen forest manager Scott McIntosh, who helped with the hunting.

Nobbs said the donation would help the community not just to get a meal, but a healthy one.

“Our biggest challenge is to get nutritious food into people and venison is one of the most nutritious things we can provide,” he said.

“For us, this is not just about keeping hunger at bay, this is about nutrition. We also know good mental health requires good nutrition and exercise.”

The 100kg of meat is expected to provide 200 meals to families in need.

“If people knew how much effort it took to get [the venison] and to get it to this point, they would be amazed,” Nobbs said.

“From our perspective, we are really grateful. We love that Scott and Leigh would be prepared to do this for us. We are also grateful to the landowners and the butcher who did all this for us.”

Olivia Reid is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.