Bell Block’s Nick Carey represents the new generation of farm kids. While his father runs the 170-hectare family farm under the gaze of Mt Taranaki, Carey spends most of his time in supermarkets or at food shows, marketing the family’s boutique beef product, Green Meadows Beef, to customers. Along with brothers Karl and Brent, now in Auckland and Melbourne respectively, the Carey trio grew up on the family farm by the coast in Opunake, near the famous Green Meadows’ surf break. Nick Carey trained as a lawyer, before realising his true passion was keeping the family farm alive, albeit in a different, more forward thinking kind of way. “None of us wanted to be physical farmers. Green Meadows Beef is a way of keeping the fourth generation involved,” says Nick. But it was father Joe who had the idea to launch the beef brand, when he became concerned that the best quality beef was going offshore. “Dad wanted the satisfaction of people recognising where their meat came from. Usually, a meat company puts the best meat into a container and ships it overseas,” he says. Launched last November 2012, the brand’s main point of difference is that Green Meadows Beef both farms and butchers its meat (in Bell Block). The butcher, Pat, has 25 years experience. If you’re talking about humane treatment of animals, then the 500 cattle roaming the paddocks at the Carey farm also have it pretty good. The pure-bred angus cattle come from the best breeders, arriving at the Carey farm when they’re “in retirement” to graze on cool climate grass. They drink spring water from troughs. Plus, says Nick, they’re not jammed into paddocks and get a new paddock to graze on every day. “We think of it like they’re living in a luxury hotel. Plus, we also only feed our animals vegetable supplements that are only ever grown on the farm. We think these conditions make a difference to the taste of the meat, which is lean and tender.” Selling 800 kilograms of beef a week, he says: “The animals come straight to our butcher from the abattoir and they’re aged by us and cut by us. That means we control the whole process, so people know where their meat is coming from…shop online at: http://www.greenmeadowsbeef.co.nz
