How is New Zealand beef and lamb part of a healthy and sustainable diet?

New Zealand beef and lamb is good for your health.

It’s locally grown, free range, free of Hormone Growth Promotants (HGPs), processed under the highest animal welfare standards and reaches the highest standards of food safety. It’s also one of the most nutrient dense foods that you can eat, packed full of essential vitamins and minerals that your body needs to function. Learn more here.

New Zealand beef and lamb is good for the planet.

The sheep and beef sector is focused on farming within the natural limits of the environment, enhancing water quality around farms, protecting and nurturing biodiversity, protecting soils, and further reducing their net greenhouse gas emissions. On nearly all measures, New Zealand has one of the most efficient and low input, low impact livestock farming systems in the world. Our sheep and cattle grow outside all year round on land that would otherwise be generally unproductive to produce food, using rain that falls from the sky. Learn more here.

New Zealand beef and lamb is good for our communities.

It is an undeniable fact that strong and healthy rural communities mean a strong and healthy New Zealand. Employing more than 92,400 people in New Zealand or around 5% of working Kiwis, the sheep and beef sector is a major part of New Zealand’s social fabric, especially in regional New Zealand, where it is often the largest single employer in many towns. In many areas of rural New Zealand, the sector is responsible for over 12% of fulltime jobs! However, these jobs are not limited to rural areas – our industry employs many urban-based Kiwis both directly and indirectly in areas such as retail and processing.

*Employment within the beef and lamb industry is not included in The Role of Red Meat in Healthy and Sustainable New Zealand Diets. Further information can be found here.