Lenah Game Meats
Healthy Ethical Tasmanian
Who We Are
For thirty 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. We have a dream that every Australian will replace their Christmas turkey with a Lenah Wallaby roast.
JOHN KELLY – Managing Director, Chair of Board
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 - Director
Katrina is an Agricultural Scientist with a strong environmental bent. Her acumen in this area was demonstrated with her being awarded the Young Australian of The Year – Environmental Category.
SALLY BRUEN - Director
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.
MICHAEL ELFWING - General Manager
A Swedish born chef, Michael has won numerous awards working at the Executive level in both Australia and Asia. Most recently he was the Group Executive Chef for all the NRMA premises. Prior to that Michael was the Executive Chef at places ranging from the Shangri La Sydney to Conrad Osaka, Japan and Hilton Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In a delightful closing of the loop, Michael used our possum with Cheong Liew at the Grange, Adelaide Hilton over 20 years ago.
Michaels’ culinary training is French and Italian. Apart from being a Chef, he is also a professional sommelier and an author (“Cooking with Michael Elfwing” shortlisted as the Best First Cookbook at the World Gourmand Cookbook Awards in Paris 2012). Michael's cookbook is available for purchase from our website.
Michael has featured on numerous TV programs. He comes to us with an absolute wealth of food industry experience! We are super proud that Lenah is keeping Michael in Tasmania.
Awards
2025 Finalist - Banksia National Sustainability Awards, Agriculture and Primary Industries
2024 Winner – EPA Sustainability Award, Tasmanian Community Achievement Awards
2023 Finalist - Telstra Best of Business Award Tasmanian - Promoting Sustainability
2022 Finalist - Tasmanian Training Awards - Small Business
2022 Gold Medal – Smoked Wallaby – Royal Hobart Fine Food Awards
Silver Medal – Wallaby Salami – Royal Hobart Fine Food Awards
2021 Gold Medal – Smoked Wallaby – Royal Hobart Fine Food Awards
Bronze Medal – Wallaby Salami – Royal Hobart Fine Food Awards
2020 Finalist - Tasmanian Employer of Choice
2014 Gold Medal – Wallaby Salami – Royal Hobart Fine Food Awards
Silver Medal – Smoked Wallaby – Royal Hobart Fine Food Awards
2011 &2010
Finalist - Delicious Magazine Tasmanian Produce Awards - Paddock
2003 Winner - Websters Tasmanian Business Growth Award
2001 Winner - Telstra Tasmanian Agribusiness Exporter of the Year Award
2000 Highest Customer Satisfaction Index ever recorded - Victorian University Australian Food Marketing Centre Customer Satisfaction Research.
1998 Nominated - Tasmanian Export Awards
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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.
