About 50 farmers were involved in the venture, which was now to receive Primary Growth Partnership money to help take it to a larger scale and commercialisation.
The farmers involved were shareholders in Wanaka-based Headwaters NZ which had worked with Alliance Group to develop the lambs.
Through the Ministry for Primary Industries, the Government would finance half the $25m programme.
A lot of the money would go to market research and development with funds also for scaling up production.
“We’ve got the lambs now. It’s at a low scale but enough the test the market,” Alliance export general manager Murray Brown said.
It would take another two to three years to scale up the numbers.
The theme of the scheme was new wealth with high health.
As well as a premium lamb product, the project would also develop baby and pet foods.
Headwaters was largely a Canterbury and Central Otago group of farmers who banded together in 2006 as sheep farming was more and more pushed into the hill country from prime flat land.
The plan was to spread the programme throughout New Zealand.
There had been a lot of science used in the genetics and forage developments but the group wouldn’t be releasing too much information because of the intellectual property involved, Brown said.
It was a wonderful opportunity to prove up the project with market research, Headwaters general manager Ian Hercus said.
“It’s all very well to have the ideas but you need someone to pay for the product.”
The benefits of Omega-3 oils and low levels of saturated fats were understood in the markets.
“We can start with that and are positive we can make lamb a healthcare product.”
Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy said the lamb project was an exciting venture given the consumer demand for premium food products.
