Dec 20, 2024
The group at Raincliff Station
Early December saw a trade delegation from Dong’e Ejiao (DEEJ) visit New Zealand as they sought to learn more about New Zealand velvet and the possibilities it may unlock in terms of new products.
Dong’e Ejiao is a TCM company that specalises in the traditional Chinese medicine of ejiao and related products. Ejiao is a donkey gelatin product made from donkey hides. As the company has grown, they have started looking to diversify their product offerings and were visiting New Zealand to explore New Zealand velvet.
“This is such an exciting opportunity for New Zealand velvet, when you have a company the size and standing of Dong’e Ejiao looking into velvet as the basis for a possible new product or products,” says DINZ CEO Rhys Griffiths.
“They are one of China’s largest traditional medicine companies, and so have capacity in research and product development, and in marketing and sales, that few companies have. It was fantastic to welcome them to New Zealand and show them the great work of our farmers so they could see for themselves the care that goes into producing New Zealand velvet.”
As part of their visit, they met with a velvet processor, where they learned about velvet grading and VelTrak, before visiting Raincliff Station and Peel Forest Estate to get an idea of what goes into producing our animals and their velvet. They also visited Mountain River Venison, where they received an educational tour of the venison processing plant.
“The group came away highly impressed with the quality standards and farming practices they saw, particularly with regards to quality assurance, hygiene and handling and environment management,” says DINZ’s markets person, Virginia Connell. “It’s pretty easy to make the deer industry look good when we visit such iconic deer farms, so a big thanks to Dave [Morgan] and Mark [Tapley] and their respective teams for welcoming us and showing the group around.”
The group at Peel Forest Estate
The success of the Dong’e Ejiao visit comes on the heels of two agreements signed between DINZ and Bejiing Tong Ren Tang, China’s oldest TCM company, the second of which took part as part of Minster McClay’s recent trade trip to China.
Such companies looking to procure a steady supply of velvet for use in health and/or functional foods in China is what DINZ has been working towards for a good many years as we look to replicate the success of the Korean market on a much bigger scale.
