New Thinking

Pests can make value-added food

Thanks in part to millions of dollars in covid-19 funding pests are well and truly in hunters’ sights as the Government integrates employment, pest control and the environment. The rich mix of goats, wallabies, possums and even koi carp could deliver some quality flesh for a sort of value-add biosecurity payback. Richard Rennie investigates the opportunities the provinces to benefit from the eradication bonanza.

ADAM Wilson, coowner of the Barn Cafe in Waimate, has been inundated in recent weeks with locals and passersby seeking out the cafe’s revamped wallaby pie.

Wilson’s business partner Andrew Bolton decided it was time to bring back the marsupial savoury that was originally on the menu 15 years ago at the Waimate Savoy Tearooms.

Wilson’s customers have since chowed through 25 kilograms of wallaby in two weeks, enough for about 250 pies, and demand has stayed strong.

Wallabies are among the pests getting special attention in the Budget, with $27 million of eradication funding to curb losses estimated at $28m a year in lost pasture production.

Estimates are that three marsupials consume the equivalent of one sheep and losses risk blowing out to $85m a year in lost pasture production if populations continue to grow.

Prolific through south Canterbury for years, they have also staked territory around Rotorua lakes.

Ironically, despite wallaby’s pest status, Wilson’s and Bolton’s pie rebirth was almost stymied by the cost of the meat, now sourced from Blenheim game processor Premium Game.

“To make money with pies you need to get the protein cost down to $20 a kg, which we did, but it was higher to start with,” Wilson said.

He has hopes of minimising the food miles of the locally sourced processed pest by ultimately starting to process the wallabies in Waimate. The men trialled a few recipe variations before hitting on a winner.

“We use local ingredients, including a filling of onion, garlic and a plum sauce to take away some of the gaminess, and add smoked paprika for some depth of flavour.”

They sell them at $5 a pie, slightly smaller than conventional pies to help keep the cost down.

The strong selling pie has expanded the business’s range and boosted the cafe’s profile with punters in Christchurch wanting to buy the pies there.

“I have told them if they want one, they have to come down and get one.”

Wilson has also considered trialling other game meats, with varied success. They include tahr (too tough), possum (too stinky) and, most successfully, a locally sourced venison pie.

He believes there is be a market for a range of game-pest pies, providing the taste is right and the meat could be sourced locally.

Further south in Wanaka Jason Danielson of Kai Pie Wholesale claimed silver in last year’s NZ Pie Awards with his gourmet chicken and bacon pie. His business delivers wholesale all over the country, including all ski-field cafes.

Danielson has experimented with more exotic pest ingredients than chicken and bacon, including goat and a peri-peri sauce pie.

“It went well, but we found the goat was very expensive, well over $25 a kg, compared to $14 a kg for lamb, and we were only getting the same price per pie as our other wholesale ones. We have had to drop it.”

Danielson said he’s open to any meat type but often it’s the cost of the protein that will put him off.

In a region where rabbits thrive as a pest he appreciates the irony of it simply being too expensive to put into a pie.

“It is ridiculously priced at $30 a kg.”

Nick Fox, owner of Basecamp Salamis near Katikati has been shooting 30-40 wallabies a night around Lake Tarawera as part of a pest control mission, and getting $15 a wallaby as pet food for his efforts.

He will often turn the marsupials into salami for hunters, describing them as a cross between beef and venison, and carrying more fat than most small game makes them good for salami and sausages.

Callum Hughes, owner of game meat supplier Fare Game in Invercargill, one of only two commercial game suppliers, said more could be done in combining pests into diets.

That could be as pies or otherwise. His business supplies wild deer, rabbit, hares and goat to luxury resorts, delis and butchers.

He was recently involved with the Wapiti Foundation, NZ Deerstalkers Association and DoC helping process 500 wild deer shot in Fiordland to transport the meat to needy families over

POPULAR: Adam Wilson’s wallaby pie has expanded his business’s range and boosted the cafe’s profile with punters in Christchurch wanting to buy the pies there.

lockdown as 1kg mince packs.

An estimated 18 tonnes of meat was donated and he sees more potential as deer numbers rise nationally.

“Rabbits are also a source of protein for some people out there. But for us one of the biggest challenges is finding reliable and capable shooters happy to go out night after night to get the numbers.”

He has had considerable enquiry since lockdown from people wanting to look at game options, but feels somewhat hamstrung by bureaucracy. This includes the rules around possums, the country’s most prolific damaging pest.

Regulations require possums to be held alive for 10 days prior to processing, be caught only in a Tb free area, and at least 1km beyond a poison zone.

Hughes admits he is also no fan of possums as they tend to stink as they are cooked.

Up in Waikato waterways are teeming with koi carp, also the recent target of regional council eradication plans.

Waikato Regional Council has recently decommissioned a carp capture and process trap on Lake Waikare that was turning the pest into fertiliser pellets.

Meanwhile, much of the control has also occurred through the annual NZ Bowhunters’ competition, with teams pulling up to half a tonne each out of waterways at every competition.

But competition organiser Allan Metcalf doubted a “smoked carp pie” would be a winner unless at a wild food festival.

He said the thick-skinned goldfish-like pests that have spread through Waikato, Waihou and Piako rivers have been an excellent fertiliser, and good for burley bait too.

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