Using wild Fiordland venison and New Zealand wagyu beef, BurgerFuel has joined forces with WithWild to offer a tasty response to a conservation challenge. By helping manage wild deer populations and supporting the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation, the companies are bringing wild food to more Kiwi tables. Verve talks to Donald Shepherd, co-founder of WithWild, about their Wild & Wagyu Burger.
Wild venison (wapiti) remains relatively unfamiliar to many New Zealanders. What do you think people misunderstand about it?
Kiwis have traditionally grown up eating beef and lamb, so many may not have had much opportunity to experience and enjoy wild venison. The word wild can also make some people wonder whether the meat might be too gamey. But Fiordland wapiti is a real delight. It’s a beautiful, deep red meat that’s incredibly flavoursome, yet not gamey at all. It’s naturally lean and clean, thanks to the way these animals live… roaming freely, grazing on wild pastures, with no fertilisers or routine drenching, and staying highly active as they move around the park. The result is beautifully natural, delicious meat with a wonderful depth of flavour.
The Wild & Wagyu burger uses venison recovered through Fiordland’s deer management programme. Can you explain how this process works and why using the meat is an important part of the conservation effort?
Wapiti were introduced to Fiordland National Park more than 100 years ago and have since established themselves in this remote part of the park. Each year, the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation undertakes surveys across the Wapiti area, which covers approximately 175,000 hectares, within the 2-million-hectare national park. By monitoring grazing patterns and other indicators, the Foundation identifies areas with higher deer populations and helps inform an annual management programme.
Based on these surveys, approximately 1,000-1,200 wapiti are removed from the park each year through a helicopter-based management programme. This is no small undertaking: the Wapiti area is incredibly remote, requiring around a 45-minute helicopter flight each way just to access it. This annual programme plays an important role in managing the introduced wapiti population and helping protect Fiordland’s precious natural ecosystems, supporting the health of its native flora, fauna and birdlife for future generations.
The partnership with BurgerFuel brings wild venison to a much wider audience. What opportunities do collaborations like this create for the wild venison industry in New Zealand?
We absolutely love our partnership with BurgerFuel. It gives us the opportunity to make wild venison accessible to more New Zealanders, and what better way to do that than through an incredible burger! The BurgerFuel team has created yet another delicious burger, giving Kiwis the chance to experience this beautiful, naturally lean protein while also feeling pretty darn good about the difference they’re making.
Here’s the really special part: by simply purchasing and enjoying this burger, customers are helping support the ongoing conservation and ecosystem management efforts in Fiordland National Park. It’s a delicious way to make a positive contribution to protecting one of New Zealand’s most precious natural environments.
With 63 BurgerFuel outlets nationwide, this partnership is incredibly important to us. It means we can reach more communities, introduce more Kiwis to the deliciousness of wild Fiordland venison, and give people the opportunity to be part of the conservation story.
Good food, great flavour and a positive impact on Fiordland. What’s not to love!
What would you like to see change in New Zealand’s relationship with wild venison over the next few years, both in terms of how we eat it and how we approach conservation?
We’ve come to appreciate that looking after our precious national parks takes two very important things: funding and passionate people who care enough to get involved. There are incredible individuals, groups and organisations doing amazing mahi up and down the country to protect and restore our natural environments. We love helping to shine a light on some of these stories, such as the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation, share the mahi that’s happening and hopefully inspire more Kiwis to get involved.
For some, that might mean supporting a local conservation project, volunteering their time or getting behind a community initiative. For others, it might simply mean heading into BurgerFuel and buying a delicious wild venison burger. And that’s the beauty of it. Everyone can play a part, and every little bit helps.
So, we’d love to see as many Kiwis as possible heading into BurgerFuel to give this incredible burger a go. Not only will you be enjoying some seriously delicious Fiordland wapiti, but you’ll also be helping support the conservation work that goes into looking after our precious Fiordland National Park.
Eat a burger. Enjoy wild. Support conservation. It’s a pretty delicious way to make a difference!
