Canterbury hunters supply foodbanks with tonnes of wild venison mince

Steve Hill, Tracy Pirie, Shirley Cairns and Adam Kreisel and his daughter in front of Shirley's truck full on venison mince, that's destined for families in Kaiapoi Photo / RNZ / Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

By Cosmo Kentish-Barnes of RNZ

Hunters4Hope’s Steve Hill and Adam Kreisel turn surplus venison from hunters and farmers into high-protein food parcels for low-income families.

It all started after the pair, keen recreational hunters themselves, had chest freezers full of venison trim and no use for it.

“So we started off paying the local butcher to turn it into mince and we donated it to the local food banks and charity groups,” said Hill, who works as a stock agent.

This was costing them a lot of money, so Kreisel, a civil contractor, installed two walk-in chillers on his property in Swannanoa, one for storing venison and the other for processing it.

Then Hill thought, “If we’ve got a surplus, so have other hunters,” so they approached the North Canterbury Hunting Competition to see if any fellow hunters would donate a deer.

The competition’s organising committee loved the idea and last year, after the weigh-in at the Amuri Showgrounds in Rotherham, they were given more deer than they were expecting.

“We took 50 and we were at the limit of what we could process.

“Around about 900 kilos of venison went to food banks.”

Hill said farmers were regularly inviting them to go and shoot deer on their farms.

“There is quite a heavy population of deer that have started to come off conservation land and invading onto farmland and eating crops and feed that was designated for stock.

“We got approached earlier in the year by one farmer who had quite a deer problem.

“So over the next couple of weeks, we cleaned 30 or 40 deer up off that farm.”

The pair has since enlisted what Hill calls “Dad’s Army” to help out with butchering and mincing.

“They’re Adam’s father and his father’s mates from the pub and they’re a fantastic group of old buggers!”

This year, the North Canterbury Hunting Competition provided 140 deer which the pair processed into just over two tonnes of mince and 145 kilos of back steak.

Image 1 of 9: Hunters4Hope's Steve Hill and Adam Kreisel.

As a rule of thumb, a kilogram of mince normally provides about eight meal portions.

“So two tonnes of mince would have been, what, 16,000 meals. So that’s pretty cool,” Hill said.

The meat was transported to the Hope Community Trust in Rangiora and by the end of the day it was all gone.

Tracy Pirie is the manager of the trust, which has a counselling centre, a community garden, a food bank and an op shop.

“We have about 18 organisations from Oxford to Kaikōura that come and pick it up,” she said.

The Hunters4Hope mobile chiller has become a regular sight at the trust.

On the first Thursday morning of every month, a queue of trucks wait their turn to pick up some mince.

For Hill and Kreisel, it’s an opportunity to chat with the volunteers who distribute it.

“It’s personally rewarding to get an understanding not only of the people that are donating venison, but we also get to meet the people at the other end who are dealing with the cold face of poverty and cost of living crisis,” Hill said.

- RNZ