Understanding the veal debate in New Zealand
For a country often said to have a farming backbone, and a population that on average eats three times more meat than the rest of the world, it’s a little odd that New Zealand has such an aversion to veal.
What is it about it that makes us squirm?
Is it the cuteness of those wobbly, doe-eyed calves we just can’t get out of our minds?
Or perhaps it’s the recurrent cases of maltreated calves reported in the media. Just last year a man was convicted on 10 charges over the treatment of 115 bobby calves in Waikato.
Now the government is doing something about treating the calves with dignity by creating new rules for farmers, but the question still remains: what is happening to them?
The reality is whether or not we eat veal, bobby calves are going to slaughter anyway.
It’s time for New Zealanders to face facts: this country’s dairy industry is huge and it has byproducts.
Bobby calves are one of those byproducts – they’re born so their mothers produce milk and are largely unwanted.
Male bobby calves are typically sent to slaughter after a minimum of four days with their mother (a time limit that is part of the new rules), while female calves are usually kept as heifer replacements, to take the place of their mothers in the herd. If the males are sold as bobby veal, usually they are no more than two weeks old and weigh less than 30 kilograms.
The Ministry of Primary Industry defines vealers, those animals raised specifically for their meat, as fattened calves raised for eight to nine months – the normal age of a pig before slaughter – and weighing no more than 160kg.
According to MPI’s statistics, the number of bobby calves slaughtered in the 2014-2015 financial year was just short of 2.1 million, with 1.9 million slaughtered the following year. The number of those defined as vealers: 379 and 361 respectively.
Following an Official Information Act request, MPI told Cuisine that the industry for veal meat, including bobby calf meat, tallied up almost $115 million in exports over the course of 2015. Ninety-five per cent of all veal exports are from bobby calf meat.
There are two types of veal, named for the colour of the meat.
The traditional version is white veal – the result of a milk-fed diet – which attracted controversy in Europe in the 80s, when it emerged that calves were kept in darkness and confined to small spaces in which they were unable to move for the duration of their life.
Veal crates are not used in New Zealand, and were outlawed in the UK in 1990 and across the European Union in 2007, but are still a reality in other countries, including the United States.
Rose veal is considered the more ethical option, as the calves are able to range freely and have a diet of both milk and grass. Many chefs believe it’s much more flavoursome than the traditional white version too.
Plenty of chefs in New Zealand are eager to use veal, but a quality product from an older animal – the more ethical and more flavoursome option – is hard to find.
Like many Kiwi chefs who have worked overseas, Harlequin Public House’s Jonny Schwass has cooked plenty of veal in his time – but there is little demand for it from diners here.
In an effort to keep bobby calves alive and well-treated for longer, the Christchurch chef has approached producers about using veal in his restaurant, but nothing has yet come of it. He’s been following the methods of Australian producer Camden Valley Meats, which rescues bobby veal and raises them over a course of months.
In fact, New Zealand has imported around $13 million worth of Australian veal over the last five years despite the export market making up to $115 million for the younger product.
‘‘It’s just ridiculous to think that we would import a single bobby calf, let alone spend a few million dollars on it,’’ Schwass says.
‘‘I think there should be a huge resurgence in veal as a product that should be celebrated in New Zealand. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to pull the band aid off the dairy industry to do that.’’ Schwass feels there is a ‘‘huge’’ disengagement between the population and the dairy industry – the majority of consumers don’t think about the fact a cow needs to become pregnant in order to produce milk, he says. The boys then end up with the ‘‘short end of the stick’’. ‘‘New Zealanders are quite lazy about the way we eat, because we’ve been so high on the hog for so long. There’s a lot of stuff that needs to change. I can talk about it and change what I’m doing in my own way, but there needs to be a seismic change.’’
MPI animals and animal products director Paul Danstead says by their definition, every dairy farm produces veal. About four million calves are born each year.
‘‘Around two million of these calves are for human consumption, fewer than 50,000 are used in pet food and the majority of the remaining calves are either heifer replacements or raised for dairy beef.’’
Just how many of those two million calves are being consumed in New Zealand is hard to determine. If not for consumption as meat, Danstead says other industries might use the animal products in baby food, as rennet for dairy products, skins for leather, blood for pharmaceuticals or for use in laboratories.
The reality of nature means five per cent of calves die at or just after birth. They are used for leather, meat and bone meal, Danstead says.
The lack of veal availability here is not just about facing up to the realities of production, but also having something worth eating.
Jacob Brown, chef and coowner of The Larder in Wellington, says he’s brought bobby veal into his restaurant, but the quality was lacking.
‘‘I just found I didn’t enjoy it. I found it had no flavour, it was too young and the cuts were too small. ‘‘If you imagine a lamb cutlet that you would get in a restaurant, it was about a third of the size of that. There was no size to it – it needed more maturity on it,’’ he says. ‘‘We need to think differently about how we age our meat – we’ve got a whole new realm of meat we can be looking at. When I drive through anywhere in New Zealand in summertime and see these bobby calves, I think ‘delicious’. It’s far too good to be pet food.’’
Chef and food writer Sam Mannering, who heads the kitchen at Auckland cafe Homestead, grew up on a dairy farm in Canterbury, where bobby calves were regularly sent off to the meatworks. It was an uncomfortable experience, but the reality of producing milk.
‘‘When you go somewhere like Vietnam, you know when something is fresh because you take it home with you live,’’ says Mannering.
‘‘It’s raw and it’s real, but it’s honest. We’re in denial about it.’’
Mannering says his father would pin a receipt on the wall each time the calves were picked up, totalling about $20 for a truckload of calves. It was the most cost-effective option.
‘‘It costs money to feed them and keep them alive. They’re like little boy chicks that just get ground up,’’ he says, drawing a parallel with the egg industry.
Food writer Lauraine Jacobs adds: ‘‘New Zealanders don’t understand how much it costs to raise their food.’’
The cost of producing veal is greater than what the public here are prepared to pay, she says – which is the case with many export-quality New Zealand meats. ‘‘If you want it, pay for it.’’ But consumers here aren’t familiar with veal and producers don’t want to offer something that won’t sell. Neither do chefs. ‘‘I’ll do it, if there’s demand for it,’’ says Mannering.
‘‘But I’m not going to risk my business.’’
While it seems there’s minimal demand for veal in any form here in New Zealand, the biggest importers of our veal are the United States, Lebanon and Egypt, with the Americans taking the lion’s share. Japan and Indonesia also import veal from New Zealand.
In Britain, veal consumption has been given a push from wellknown chef Hugh FearnleyWhittingstall, who, along with a host of others, endorsed the ‘‘Good Veal Campaign’’ led by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
In 2011, Fearnley-Whittingstall wrote in The Guardian: ‘‘To be honest, if you drink milk or eat cheese, it’s crueller not to eat it.’’
He continued: ‘‘Spare a thought for male dairy calves. Over a quarter of a million of them are killed each year. Unable to produce milk (obviously) and unsuitable for beef production, they are shot soon after birth as a ‘waste product’ of the dairy industry. Either that or they’re exported to Europe, where the continental craving for pale meat means their welfare is profoundly compromised.’’
Federated Farmers’ national meat and fibre chairman Rick Powdrell said in a statement that the production methods of white veal ‘‘do not fit’’ with New Zealand standards.
‘‘There is not currently much production of rose veal in New Zealand but it could present another product opportunity for farmers, if domestic or international customers are able to be secured at a price point workable for all parties,’’ he added.
Schwass says it’s really up to the consumers to decide: face reality and change your attitude or continue sweeping it under the carpet. It’s a reality that New Zealand needs to deal with differently, he says. ‘‘I think people need to get over it a little bit. It’s hard to educate people when you’re taking all the risk and rolling all the dice.’’
He says if there were more value placed on veal here in terms of taste, it would be handled differently. That won’t change until it stops being ‘‘thrown around like it’s rubbish’’, he says.
‘‘If you are choosing to be a meat eater – because it is a choice, as it is a choice to be a vegetarian or a vegan – the reality is you’ve got a bit of an obligation. You’ve got to back these products, you’ve got to be involved in it.
‘‘People want to know where their food comes from,’’ Schwass adds.
‘‘This is where it comes from.’’