NZ: Celebrating National Lamb Day
New Zealanders are being encouraged to celebrate lamb as the meat that made a nation.
February 15 has been designated National Lamb Day as it was on that date in 1882 the sailing ship Dunedin departed from Port Chalmers carrying the first shipment of frozen lamb to London.
Ag Proud chairman Jon Pemberton said the voyage was the start of New Zealand’s journey as a global food powerhouse.
“National Lamb Day is our way of honouring this legacy, celebrating our incredible kai, and acknowledging every individual involved in its journey from farm to fork.
“Let’s raise a chop in salute to our food champions!”
About 5000 frozen carcasses from Totara Estate, near Ōamaru, were on the Dunedin and only one was condemned when it arrived.
However, almost all were nearly lost in the tropics, where crew noticed the cold air in the hold was not circulating properly.
To save the cargo, Captain John Whitson crawled inside and sawed extra air holes.
He almost froze to death himself and had to be pulled out by ropes and resuscitated by crew members.
The success of the frozen exports encouraged farmers to grow their flocks with numbers peaking in 1982 at about 70 million.
That had dropped to about 26 million by 2021, but New Zealand still has the highest density of sheep per farm area in the world.
In 2022 lamb and mutton exports returned $4.4 billion in revenue.
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