MEET YOUR {OUTSTANDING} MAKER - MIDDLEHURST DELIVERED

Being recognised alongside other premium makers at the Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards was a thrill for Sophie and Lucy and the entire Macdonald family. As well as multiple medal wins, Middlehurst Delivered was named Giesen Wines Paddock Champion in 2022. They backed it up in 2023 when they received a Gold Medal for The Middlehurst Station Box,  Deluxe Edition. What makes their lamb outstanding?

Settled on the rustic, rugged, high country landscape at the top of the South Island lies Middlehurst Station, a family-owned and operated farm that has evolved to offer accommodation as well as a farm-to-plate delivery business providing customers with quality, ethically sourced lamb.

Sisters Sophie Johnson and Lucy Macdonald grew up on Middlehurst Station, which spans 16,550 acres from the top the Kaikourā Range to lower boundaries with the Awatere, Tone and Winterton Rivers, before founding Middlehurst Delivered in 2020.

Middlehurst Delivered founders Sophie and Lucy spent their upbringing around the farm and say they always wanted to develop a business to showcase the farm. After being thrown into the first 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, the pair found they had extra time on their hands and began brainstorming plans to create a business. “Our ideas began to get bigger and bigger, and so we started to develop a farm-to-plate experience,” Sophie says.

Middlehurst Delivered is entirely family owned and operated, and the sisters intend keeping things that way. “Lucy and I operate Middlehurst Delivered taking merino lamb from the farm to the consumer, while our parents work on the station and our brother also helps run things,” explains Sophie. Keeping the business family-focused is crucial for the sisters. “It’s family across all aspects, ensuring everyone cares about the end product. We have passion engrained every step of the way.”

Sustainability is another driving force. “We’re big on minimising waste. All our packaging and boxes are compostable, we have cool wool insulation and containers that can be recycled.” Sophie says that despite the fact sustainable business practice sometimes incurs higher costs, it is crucial to the pair that the business operates in the most sustainable way possible. “We knew that adding these elements would cost extra, but it was important for us to do as we don’t want to contribute to landfill,” explains Sophie.

Middlehurst Delivered ensure its products are lightweight and tightly packaged to keep shipping weight down, further reducing its carbon footprint. Sophie says that producing a perishable product is a tricky task, but after plenty of practice, the team has things down to an art. “Having a perishable product is a big challenge, lamb has a short shelf life, so we ensure we dispatch it fresh so we don’t waste anything,” she says.

“We do next-day shipping, we don’t do pre-orders, we only sell it once we’ve got the product processed and in hand.” Sophie explains that while this business model is unique, Covid changed consumer behaviour and incentivised online shopping. That said, since moving out of the pandemic many consumers have reverted back to pre-covid life and aren’t shopping online as much.

To meet this new trend, Sophie says that Middlehurst Delivered is opening a farm shop in 2023, to allow people to experience the beauty and quality of their food in a restaurant setting, rather than just their own homes. “We’re so excited to get that moving,” says Sophie.

Being named an Outstanding New Zealand Food Producer Awards winner was an incredible experience according to Sophie. “It was so exciting to have our lamb recognised alongside other great products. It was great to celebrate all the other makers, and an honour to be there alongside everyone else.”

As the whirlwind of the past few years has proven Lucy and Sophie are always looking for improvements and as we write this they are knee-deep in a move for Middlehurst Delivered. They’re working on opening a shop in Kaikōura in July, to purchase from them and learn all the news about their new store visit their website.