Aug 13, 2021
We don’t want to sound like law enforcers, but if you plan on removing and selling velvet this season:
- Your farm must be registered with VelTrak™
- Your velvetting and cold storage facilities must have passed an RCS audit
- Your velvet must be tagged with black VelTrak UHF RFID tags supplied by your veterinarian.
DINZ’s new QA general manager, Rob Gregory, says velvet is a highly valuable ingredient in traditional Asian medicines, purchased increasingly for use in branded health food products. As such, there are strict rules surrounding animal welfare, food hygiene and traceability.
“We need to comply with these rules so we can keep on producing and selling our fantastic velvet into these high value markets.”
Rob says some farms are not yet registered with VelTrak. Until they do, they will be unable to access the new black UHF RFID VelTrak tags from their vet, or sell their velvet for human consumption.
Properly tagged velvet: Velvet must be tagged with a new black VelTrak tag in order to be sold for human consumption. In order to buy the tags from your vet, your farm must be registered with VelTrak and be RCS compliant
All known deer farms were emailed invitations to register with VelTrak in May and again in July.
“Thank you to everyone who has registered. To those who haven’t, please look for the invitation email from veltraknotifications@deernz.org in your in-box or spam folder. Open it and click on the registration link. Registration takes only around 5 minutes.”
It’s important when registering to do three things:
- Choose a password,
- update your business details and
- select your vet practice.
“You may also like to save the link to the VelTrak website veltrak.velvet.org.nz in your browser favourites folder, so you don’t have to remember it.”
Any questions? Go to www.deernz.org/veltrak or Freephone 0508 VELTRAK (0508 835 872) and Pam MacLeman on the VelTrak helpdesk will help.
Did you select your vet practice?
Some farms have registered with VelTrak, but have not completed the process. They have not selected a veterinary practice under ‘Manage Business Details’.
Selecting a vet practice is vital. When you select your preferred practice, your farm name appears in that practice’s list of clients. This lets the practice allocate VelTrak tags on your behalf. If you haven’t selected a vet practice, you won’t get any black VelTrak tags.
Unsure whether or not you have done this?
- Log on to veltrak.velvet.org.nz
- Select the MANAGE drop down arrow on the top right of your screen
- Select BUSINESS DETAILS and fill in the three categories:
- Choose your vet practice
- Fill in your chosen phone number
- Enter your NAIT number.
Once you have filled in all 3 categories, VelTrak will allow you to save your changes.
Your chosen vet can now supply you with tags.
NVSB audits: outstanding actions complete?
Did you have a clean RCS audit of your shed and freezer this season, or were there some things needing attention? What about your NVSB requirements?
If you have any outstanding actions to complete, such as returning any unused drugs from last season and reconciling your drug record book, please do these as soon as possible, so you can obtain the new black VelTrak tags.
Vets cannot allocate tags on the VelTrak system to farms where there are outstanding RCS or NVSB actions awaiting completion.
