Māui is a gifted, clever demigod of Polynesian mythology who fished up the North Island of Aotearoa, New Zealand. Māui dead during his journey to seek immortality for human beings. Māui in his life has made many achievements and finally sacrificed his precious life for the sake of human beings. That is the reason we named our brand after him. We were and will be encouraged by his spirit along our path to supply wholesome sheep milk to the world.
Today Maui Team has made two major achievements. The first is the successful breeding of Southern Cross Dairy Sheep. This breed is the first dairy sheep breed for southern atmosphere in the history. The second is it built up a demonstration farm and developed a system to raise our sheep on the farm. Now it is looking forward sharing its achievements and experience with more farmers in this area.
Maui Sheep Milk began from a 600 hectare Maori farm in Lake Taupo area. This farm started to keep a healthy sheep herd since 2007. On this farm, traditional practise were applied to the herd. This dairy sheep farm was built on the dairy sheep breed New Zealand imported from Europe a long time ago. As time passes, these sheep started to lose their genetic vigour.
To regain the vigor of New Zealand dairy sheep breed, we imported embryos and semen from around the world. With the help of genetics, we successfully bred a unique dairy breed which is suitable to New Zealand Environment. We proudly named it Southern Cross™. This new breed marked a new era of dairy sheep in New Zealand and the world.
In 2015, we purchased a new farm on the edge of Lake Taupo and made this farm a demonstration farm and home to Southern Cross ™. Southern Cross ™ Sheep are happily living on the farm. This farm is previously a beef farm. We have purchased world class facility from France and set it up for our herd.
Product Story
We were amazed at the delicious taste of fresh sheep milk. Prior to 2018, we have been focusing on breeding a suitable dairy sheep for New Zealand. Now we have moved toward to producing high quality sheep milk products.
To achieve this goal, Maui has established a whole quality control system to oversee the quality of our sheep milk products within each step and as a whole.
We set up the protocol for our sheep farm which specifies procedures and steps to guarantee the health of each sheep. We have technical solution to record the weight and health status for each sheep. We test sheep milk each day to make sure the fresh supply is up to our highest standard.
In our manufacturing plants, we test the milk/powder before and after each product run. We make sure all the products we deliver to our sheep milk lovers is within the range we have set up in the first place to best care for human health.
To make sure no part is neglected. We only chose transporters which are registered to New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industry to make sure the likelihood our product is contaminated during transportation is minimised.
In our pursuit for better sheep milk products, we equally value the natural environment we are building our sheep milk industry in. Maui Milk believes looking after the planet and improving the environmental sustainability is a high priority. If we think doing one thing is not good to our herd or milk quality, we do not do it. It is as simple as that.
We carry the same philosophy to new product development of sheep milk product for Maui. All the Maui products keep a high standard in selecting the ingredients to blend with sheep milk. If we do not feel right to add this, we simplify don’t add it. It is as simple as that.
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Delicious Taste
Sheep milk has a distinctive flavour from cow milk. Some cheese can only be made by sheep milk otherwise it loses its characteristics. Sheep and goats are both ruminants. Sheep milk does not have the gamey taste that goat milk does.
Dietary factors also influence the taste of the milk. On our farm, sheep graze the pasture on our farm.
Many say the taste of sheep milk is more delicious than cow milk.
Easily digested
The smaller fat globules in sheep milk enabling digestive enzymes to break it down more rapidly. Among ruminants, the average fat globule size is the smallest in sheep milk ( Park et al. 2007) Sheep milk also has higher levels of short-and medium-chain fatty acids, rendering a faster and easier digestion process as well as producing quicker energy supply. Agglutinin is absent in sheep milk and goat milk (Park and others 2007), providing better digestibility compared to cow milk.
Gut friendly
Many people who suffered from lactose intolerance can digest sheep milk without problem.
New Zealand is known as World’s last Pure Land. Maui farm is in the central part of North Island of New Zealand. Maui farm is surrounded by wild water, great lakes and is sat on a verdant plain framed by rugged mountains. We believe a place of purity like our farm will create premium foods for nurturing.
New Zealand is also known for its clean, green farming practise. To guarantee the quality of NZ produced milk, New Zealand government has set up detailed regulations minimising the quality risk in the farming, manufacturing, and transportation and exportation process. For each batch of product New Zealand exported comes with a Health Certification which tracked the whole production process took place in New Zealand.
It is not enough to have both fertile land and good environment. We still need good dairy sheep breed. Before Maui, all the best dairy sheep breed all come from Europe. These pure bred will not live healthily here in New Zealand as the weather and farming practise are so different in their hometowns. Maui has spent 2 years in breeding Southern Cross Sheep, the first dairy sheep breed unique to New Zealand.
It is always Maui People’s belief that happy, healthy sheep with plenty of good food and fresh water will result in premium milk. We have followed this philosophy throughout the whole life of our sheep. Maui sheep graze freely on luscious paddock during amiable weather. Maui farm has built barn for Maui sheep to stay in bad weather.
Maui Sheep Milk is a premium product, created in a premium environment.
Maui product only select simplest and finest ingredient to add into Maui Sheep Milk to make it more impressive.