Skin cream made from deer milk
Landcorp is milking 80 red deer to make milk powder for high-end New Zealand restaurants and skin creams and other cosmetics for Asian markets.
The Government’s farming company completed its second season of milking last month and is due to start milking hinds again when they drop their fawns in November.
Innovation general manager Rob Ford said the hinds were infawn at the moment and were not being milked.
‘‘The season usually goes from November until February or mid March, the deer are milked twice a day, and the fawns are hand raised.’’
He said Landcorp was conscious of environmental concerns about cows and was looking at alternative land uses for its farms.
‘‘Milking deer has been an exciting journey for us. We are not looking for volume, but value.’’
Ford said they were keen to know more about the construction of deer milk after the second season of harvesting.
Deer milk content has been found to be higher in fat than other types of milk. Landcorp was also keen to get market feedback so it could direct sales to consumer demand.
‘‘We expect to get market information back on the personal care products [such as moisturiser and skin creams] from the Asian countries later this year - where we are trialling three entities. But reports to date are that the cosmetics are in demand.’’
Ford said about 5000 to 6000 litres of deer milk produced each season was sent to Massey University’s small scale dryer. ‘‘It goes in many products in high-end restaurants, but a chef tried it in creme brulee and said it was great and took the dessert to another level.’’
More work was required in deer genetics also for deer milk to be a financial success, Ford said. He said deer milking was developed in partnership with Gore farmers and Massey University.
He said part of Landcorp’s reasoning was that it could be good for the country’s exports.