Who We Are

For twenty five  years Lenah Game Meats has been producing high quality Tasmanian game meats. It is a small privately owned Tasmanian company built on passion, ethics and pragmatic environmentalism. It was founded by John and Katrina Kelly and Sally Bruen in 1993.

At Lenah we are committed to making the world a better place socially, environmentally and ecologically.

Lenah is a company with a deep ethical position. It is based on a vision of Australian farmers producing products from indigenous animals, rather than relying solely on ‘exotic’ sheep and cattle. We’d love to see Tasmania ethically utilise the abundant naturally occurring resources of wallaby and possum rather than relying solely on ‘exotic’ sheep and cattle.

We have a dream that every Australian will replace their Christmas turkey with a Lenah Wallaby roast.

JOHN KELLY – MANAGING DIRECTOR

John is an Agricultural Scientist and prior to establishing Lenah Game Meats he was an Agricultural Advisor with the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries. In response to the environmental damage caused by European style grazing agriculture he observed from the Northern Territory to Tasmania, he decided there must be a better way.

KATRINA KELLY – ADMINISTRATION AND HR

Katrina is an Agricultural Scientist who has worked with a broad range of farmers to improve sustainable farming practices and her acumen within this area was demonstrated with her being awarded the Young Australian of The Year – Environmental Category.

SALLY BRUEN – MARKETING 

Sally has extensive strategic and business development experience within the Not for Profit sector.  The opportunity to bring a sustainable, healthy and environmentally friendly food product to market with Lenah Wallaby was what attracted her to establishing Lenah with the Kellys.

Awards

• In 2000, a customer satisfaction survey conducted by the Victorian University Australian Food Marketing Centre identified that Lenah had the highest customer satisfaction index of all similar sized businesses ever surveyed by the Centre.

• Lenah Game Meats was awarded the Telstra Tasmanian Agribusiness Exporter of the Year award for 2001 in recognition of its achievements. In particular the judges were impressed by Lenah’s thorough understanding and close cultural ties with its export markets.

• In 2003 Lenah was the overall winner of the Webster’s Tasmanian Business Growth Awards recognizing the quality of its management system and dedication to innovation.

• In 2010 and 2011 Lenah Wallaby was the Tasmanian finalist in the ‘Paddock’ category, Delicious Magazine ‘Produce Awards’.

• Our wallaby products have won multiple awards at the Hobart Fine Food Awards. 

Inspiration Behind Lenah

We would like to honour a gentleman that was part of the inspiration behind Lenah.  Mr Dick Lawrence.

Dick Lawrence was a creative and forward-thinking farmer, based at Cressy, Northern Tasmania.  John first met Dick when he was working with the Department of Agriculture.  Dick was one of Johns farming clients.  Dick was keen to investigate the potential for a business based on processing Tasmanian possum and shared these ideas with John.  At the time John and Sally were participants in a business development training program called The Enterprise Workshop.  John and Sally formed a working group with some other participants, producing a feasibility study on Dicks concept as well as Tasmanian wallaby.  At the time the Department of Agriculture was restructuring and John didn’t like the office-bound direction it was heading, so he put up his hand for a redundancy.  Together John and Sally set up Lenah and the rest, as they say, is history