Conscious Valley

dish Hero Ingredient Champion and New Zealand Food Innovation Network, Emerging Business Champion 2025, Conscious Valley, Thick Cut Loin Chops hail from the emerald hills of Ōhāriu and the vision and toil of Hamish Best and partner Caroline.

Spark up a conversation with any farmer in the country. If talk doesn’t start with the weather, it will surely end with it. And although Hamish Best is not just any farmer, that’s where our conversation inevitably began.

A decent spring and summer, then healthy autumn rains. Now, poised for winter, Hamish had plenty of grass available to his stock, and, for perhaps the first time in recorded history, we had received a positive weather report from someone who works the land. But just as this isn’t any old farmer we’re introducing, this isn’t any old paddock clover—nor flock and herd that call it home.

Hidden among the emerald hills of Ōhāriu, straddling the Cook Strait, is a pastoral gem waiting to be discovered by ‘discerning food enthusiasts’. Conscious Valley provides a win-win for Wellingtonians, delivering somewhat of an oxymoron to their dinner tables. "We're the closest red meat farm to the city," explains Hamish, "but we're also delivering high-quality, premium red meat."

Our judges agree with the second half of that statement. Conscious Valley was crowned the inaugural dish Hero Ingredient Champion 2025 for their Thick Cut Loin Chops. Chosen by dish Editorial Director Sarah Tuck and Food Director Claire Aldous, this accolade celebrates a versatile, quality ingredient that's a must-have in every Kiwi food lover's kitchen. "The combination of taste and texture was absolutely spot on," noted Aldous. "The meat was rich, tender and juicy with an earthy sweetness we understand is attributed to the sea-salt swept pastures that the lambs graze on,” and the recognition didn’t stop there. 

These same earthy, sweet chops earned Conscious Valley the New Zealand Food Innovation Network Emerging Business 2025 award, which spotlights a business established over the previous 18 months that is creating outstanding produce. "Absolutely delicious," the judges remarked, echoing Aldous's sentiments, before declaring they wanted to rush out and buy the product themselves. "Pure lamb flavour with its own sense of place. Incredible."

The salt-swept pastures Aldous refers to—the ‘place’ our other judges can taste—is one part of a finely balanced equation, integral to Conscious Valley’s considered approach to New Zealand’s premium red meat market. Another is careful breeding, predicated upon meat quality rather than carcass weight.

"We knew that we wanted to retail our meat, so we wanted carcasses that had relatively good meat yields,” outlines Hamish. “We also wanted meat that [is] a good eating experience—tasty, tender, and with relatively good fat content." 

Free range, grass-fed, ethically reared with sustainable farming practices prioritised—Conscious Valley’s Romney x Texel ewes are chosen for their maternal nature and high meat-yielding lambs; their Angus and Shorthorns are praised for their beef, with Speckled Park genetics introduced to improve marbling potential. As you sit there now, at your desk, on your couch, in the train, in your office or bedroom, on a seat in the dentist’s waiting room, or perhaps on a park bench, reading this story, a flourishing cohort of animals is enjoying what’s arguably the greatest example of ‘dinner with a view’ offered anywhere in the world. Of course, there are no reservations available for patrons of the two-legged kind.

Joining Hamish at the helm of this project is his partner, Caroline. The pair have taken over his family’s farm—the 420-hectare, six generations in the making, Huiawa. "I grew up in Ōhāriu," he recalls. "I grew up in the house that I'm living in now and on the farm. We lease this farm [from] the family. I think our original ancestors moved into Ōhāriu in 1856.”

Yet, regardless of how familiar the terrain, regardless of whether its knolls and ridges now make up part of the West’s genetic memory, its unique challenges were always there, ready for Hamish and Caroline to have a crack at. "Fat content is the harder thing to do in our hill country”, explains Hamish, “because we are so steep and our animals are moving around a lot more than they would on a dairy farm. So we needed animals that could handle the terrain as well."

Hill country indeed—despite being roughly a twenty-minute drive from Cuba Street, Huiawa’s topography is more Tolkienesque than close to town. Rolling hills rise into rugged backcountry, an expansive landscape bejewelled by regenerating native scrub—Manuka, Karaka, Tauhinu and Kanuka—plunging 200 metres to the roaring waters below. Wind whipped and salt-lashed, if you still require further elucidation, Hamish suggests, quite succinctly, to picture a parcel of land much like a “sea mountain”. 

So, how does a farmer fatten up an animal that must continually climb a mountain in the sea? A question of calories, the answer lies again in Conscious Valley’s commitment to its name. Converting gentler country from basic hill grasses into perennial legume stands like lucerne creates dedicated fattening areas. Combined with relaxed grazing rotation and specialised forage crops to feed the animals when the farm's natural feed supply is reduced, quality meat is maintained year-round.

And as much as Huiawa challenges its stewards, its bounty is offered in equal measure, mostly in the form of an aforementioned market advantage. 

"One thing about farming where we farm is we get a lot of minerals blowing in off the sea salt wind," Hamish informs. "[Our] pastures get a higher level of minerals from the ocean, which inland farms or even other coastal farms that aren't as windy as ours wouldn't get." They pay for this advantage—literally, in fencing and rust. "But our stock is incredibly healthy, and you can taste it in the meat. Not saltiness, but there's a distinct flavour, which the judges alluded to when they said the meat has a distinct sense of place."

What’s particularly remarkable is the timeline in which Hamish and Caroline—with the odd bit of help from a seasoned pair of hands belonging to Hamish’s dad—have managed to conquer the palates of critics and consumers. Just eighteen months in the saddle at the time of judging, and already generating waves felt well beyond Wellington’s coast—the groundswell for Conscious Valley actually began some 2,500 kilometres away, on distinctly different shores. 

"I met Caroline over in Melbourne," Hamish recalls. "I was over there doing product development for a grass company in agriculture, and I'd always wanted to come back to Wellington to farm. But I wanted to use my marketing brain to come up with something over and above farming to keep my mind busy. When we were in Melbourne during the pandemic, I noticed there was always a queue outside shops on Smith Street—expensive, high-quality meat places. I realised that people are still looking for high-quality red meat."

"We thought about what farming these animals means to us—we want to give them the best, look after them as best we possibly can while they're in our care. We thought about Wellington's market—quite a concerned consumer. They care about where their food comes from, how it's farmed, and the ethical choices made behind what they're eating."

Wellingtonians do care. This is shown through a growing customer and client base. Half of Conscious Valley’s production flows through Harbourside Markets, while the remainder supplies eight Wellington restaurants and, most recently, a newly unveiled online store. Here, concerned consumers can shop from a wide range of premium cuts, but with one eye ever on sustainable practices, Conscious Valley keeps supply tightly tethered to demand.  If a preferred cut is not available online, you are encouraged to reach out to order bespoke.

"Our big goal is becoming Wellington's go-to red meat brand," affirms Hamish. “The first brand that comes to mind when Wellingtonians think of getting red meat.”