Congratulations to Anne-Clé and Daniel Gordon on the birth of their son Tom Jacques Ross Gordon in late December.

 

 

Congratulations also to Michael and Anne-Marie O’Neill from Bakers’ Crossing Farm who are celebrating two recent engagements in their family – their son Tom and Millie Holden; and their daughter Lana and Tom Middleton recently announced their upcoming nuptials!

 

THAT PHOTO

The O’Neill family’s truck which is an ideal mobile billboard for Coastal Spring Lamb, also has a great photo on the back featuring Donald McIlraith working in his sheep yards at the Washpool, his family farm on the south coast of the North Island.  The photo even featured in the December 2019 issue of Cuisine magazine.

Donald McIlraith

Donald and his wife Sally are the fourth generation of his family to farm at the Washpool, a 2,000 acre sheep and cattle station.  The farm was named after the signature ‘Washpool’ on the property, where all the big stations along coastline brought their sheep to be washed before shearing.  Their son Andy lives and works on the farm too, while sisters Pru and Bridget run the Washpool Coastal Retreat, a stunning seaside holiday home, which is available to rent at washpool.co.nz

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We had a great start to the year with a visit from our in-market partner, Yannick Rooms who is a part-owner of All Meats in Belgium.  All Meats is an intergenerational family owned and run Distribution Company, which operates throughout Belgium, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Luxemburg.  They have been marketing and distributing Coastal Spring Lamb and Coastal Lamb since 2015.  We caught up with Yannick in Hawkes Bay where we enjoyed a dinner with Warren MacDonald and Steve McKinley from Ovation; and a fantastic tour of Seafield Farm with Wes Cave.

Seafield is an outstanding property and it was great to learn a bit more about its history, including the Flag Forest which was single-handedly planted by Wes and Sam’s grandfather D (Kipper) Holt.  Over 20 years he transformed 6 hectares of bare farmland into a stunning native forest.  Even more amazing that he started planting it when he was 70 years old!

Rich and I convinced Yannick to cancel his flight from Hawkes Bay to Auckland and instead took him via car so he got to see a bit more of NZ during his short stay.  In Auckland we had dinner with John Saddler of Mountain River Venison which was fun and Yannick had a couple of days to explore the city.  All in all a great few days.  Thanks again Wes for your hospitality!

Congratulations Mat McLean – the very first winner New Zealand winner of the Coastal Lamb Challenge!

Mat’s entry featured Coastal Lamb loin and confit shoulder with smoked kelp, dashi potato, beach spinach, kim chi, white asparagus and kina butter – check out the photo above.

Regarded as one of New Zealand’s leading chefs, Mat is the Executive Chef and owner of Palate Restaurant in Hamilton.  Mat is a chef with highly developed technical skills, who’s committed to cooking with seasonal, local produce. He enjoys experimenting with flavours and textures.

Mat trained as a chef at Waikato Polytechnic after which he was awarded a scholarship to work in the UK, where he gained invaluable work experience at two of London’s most prestigious restaurants, Pure Leith (1 Michelin Star) and Capital Hotel (2 Michelin stars). Following a stint in Melbourne as head chef at the Middle Bite (a 1 hat restaurant) he returned to New Zealand to establish Palate in 2005, which is one of the New Zealand’s most awarded restaurants.