My favorite system to revisit, refine, and constantly innovate is our stress-free harvesting system. Because the way an animal dies should always matter. Here are two new advancements we’ve recently made to better our harvest system:
1. New FLIR Drone Cameras – These cameras offer unparalleled clarity and precision. Enhanced zoom capabilities allow us to monitor operations from a considerable distance, ensuring we operate throughout the night unseen and unheard by the deer.
2. Electric UTVs – We’ve transitioned all our harvest vehicles to electric. This quiet transformation allows us to move silently in the night, increasing both the number of deer we see and their proximity while harvesting. Without engine noise on the bumpy ranch roads, we’ve discovered just how loudly we’ve been rattling around. It’s been quieter at night the last few months and we’ve really come to enjoy it.
|
|
Why constant harvest improvements matter:
1. It’s the right thing to do for the animal, period. 2. It’s better for you – Stress in animals trigger physiological responses, releasing hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. We can now measure oxidative stress and inflammation indicators, such as 4-HNE and pyrraline, in meat. These markers are linked to cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. A recent nutrient density report shows reduced levels of these compounds in our venison compared to beef, highlighting the health benefits of a stress-free approach. 3. It’s safer to eat – Stress depletes glycogen, which turns into lactic acid as an animal dies. Lactic acid acts as a natural antimicrobial agent. Less stress means more lactic acid and meat that is safe from bacterial growth. Our methods ensure that our venison retains this protective quality, providing a safer product for our customers. 4. It tastes better – Stress-free harvesting maintains the right amount of lactic acid, achieving the ideal pH level for tenderness and that “clean” taste we all love.
|
|
We’ve always sensed that doing the right thing during our harvests yields better food and now we have the science to affirm it. I get excited thinking about how, in the near future, comprehensive food testing will be more accessible to producers and its results more readily available to consumers. Such transparency could transform the very foundations of our food system, creating a direct connection between the customer and the integrity of their food's source.
Exciting times ahead.
|
|
Aloha,
Jake Muise / CEO & Co-Founder
|
|
Harvest Manager, Kalena Lenwai, and Holo ʻAi Coordinator, Temoani Keahi, unload a pallet of Holo ʻAi ground venison to Community Partner— Maui Food Bank.
|
|
Nā Keiki Kui Holoʻai
A CONTINUUM OF FOOD-SHARING
|
|
|
|
Although helping to balance Maui’s deer population will always be at the center of our mission, food-sharing has become an incredibly important and fulfilling outcome and vehicle of and for our work. And we named it Holo ʻAi.
Holo ʻAi means to rush food to where it is needed, holo meaning to flow, run, sail, fly, and ʻai meaning food. And there are so many hands helping to hoʻoholo, to increase and hasten this sharing, and we are so grateful for them all, for our community partners as well as our ‘ohana of customers who continue to support the business model we are working to build and the community members we are striving to be.
|
|
Holoʻai is also the name for a traditional food bundle, a rectangular serving of paʻi ʻai or cooked taro that was wrapped in ti leaf and then easily lashed together in large quantities for mass transport — the greenest form of palletization there ever was. The lashed food bundles could then be floated down a river to waiting canoes or hiked out of rich taro-terraced valleys. In times of famine, food was moved in this way to sustain entire towns. Old Hawaiian newspapers are full of such stories:
|
|
“CONCERNING THE FAMINE.—The famine continues here in Waimea, nevertheless, recent days have been made a bit better than days past by the families of Waipiʻo, they who string together holoʻai in the deep valley and who frequently bring food and with that food—health for Waimea's people.”
- Ke Au Okoa, 29 August 1867.
|
|
Present day, our own “keiki kui holoʻai,” our amazing team, strings together all the pieces and processes needed to move over 75,000 lbs of venison over the last 9 months (over 145,000 lbs total since the program's inception in March of 2020) into the hands of our community partners and then on to the ʻohana with whom we get to share this incredible food resource. To our team, to our Holo ʻAi Cooler partners, to our community food drive partners, and to every volunteer that has showed up at midnight to help—mahalo, mahalo, mahalo.
|
|
For us, the meaning of Holoʻai is manifold—a food bundle, a food-sharing program, and a long-remembered care-taking of shared health.
|
|
Holo ka 'ai!
Kuʻulani Muise / Brand Lady & Co-Founder
|
|
As this is already our 16th Volume of what has been described as the longest Newsletter ever, we have archived Volumes 1-15 for anyone who might love some backstories and extra long-form content.
|
|
|
|
|
