TE MANA means prestige and authority in Maori and it is regarded as ‘food from heaven’. TE MANA LAMB™ is the result of a ten-year farming programme in New Zealand. While breeding sheep to be healthier and better adapted to high country environments, Alliance has discovered a sheep with a different type of fat, an intramuscular fat, higher in Omega-3 with Wagyu beef‐style marbling.
The free-range lamb is raised at high altitude on the pastoral land of the South Island in spring, and then grazes on chicory pastures in the summer. It’s during those last thirty days living on the chicory pastures that the higher levels of Omega-3 and polyunsaturated fats are produced. The result is a milder tasting, premium quality lamb, that’s versatile to cook with. TE MANA LAMB™ won the Innovation Award for New Zealand’s Most Innovative Food in 2017 and the New Zealand Food Safety Primary Sector Products and Frozen categories at the New Zealand Food Awards in 2018. Classic Fine Foods has selected this range because it gives the opportunity to chefs to come back to naturally fatty and versatile products while the industry has been breeding out fat to get super lean products with a very mild taste which are hard to cook with.