For years, beef tallow lived on the fringes – an old-fashioned ingredient your grandparents might’ve cooked with, not something you’d expect to see ranged nationally by a major supermarket.

Yet Rob Mitchell has spent the past decade quietly betting that would change. This year, that belief has been realised, with Mitchells Nutrition grass-fed beef tallow now on shelf in more than 100 Woolworths stores across New Zealand and the Kiwi company eyeing broader conversations across the retailer’s Trans-Tasman network.

For a founder who once did “everything he could not to work” in a traditional sense, it’s an unlikely trajectory. Mitchell’s first career was on a snowboard, tackling the slopes, filming content and writing travel pieces around the globe before a serious injury on the ice in his late 20s forced him to rethink. Tired of medicating with painkillers to assist recovery from a snapped humerus and cracked pelvis, Mitchell became obsessed with what he was putting in his body. Bone broth, made from a Mitchell family recipe, became the cornerstone of his recovery.

“I saw first-hand how powerful proper nutrition could be,” he says. “I felt the difference in my joints, my gut, my energy. That curiosity has never really gone away.”

Curiosity is one thing. Turning a kitchen experiment into a scalable business is another. Buoyed by an entrepreneurial family, Mitchell grew up watching harebrained ideas take shape and learned early how capital-hungry food manufacturing can be. Before Mitchells Nutrition could launch – with 2020 marking their first official sale – he pressed pause, headed to the mines in Western Australia and spent three years on a saving mission to bankroll the idea himself.

“We didn’t take on outside investors,” he says. “The business was built the long way around using our own resources and a fair bit of grit.”

Back in New Zealand, the next phase was less glamorous and more grind. Mitchell and his father sat down and reduced the idea to a simple, ruthless checklist – was it shelf-stable, lightweight and easy to ship, high value with a sensible margin and backed by a sound origin story. On paper, beef tallow ticked all the boxes.

Mitchell’s early experiments saw him tap into Massey University’s research and development facilities and the FoodBowl Open Day, part of the New Zealand Food Innovation Network. Both opportunities gave him a way to validate process and product without having to build a test factory from scratch. These semi-commercial trials helped sharpen the broth, strengthen the drying technology and, ultimately, shape the tallow that now lives on Woolworths’ shelves.

In Mitchells world, beef tallow isn’t a quirky side hustle – it’s the natural next step in a true nose-to-tail model. Bones simmer for hours in large kettles to become broth, then are filtered and gently dried into a shelf-stable powder. The rendered fat that rises to the top becomes tallow, rounding out the process with a wellness product that reduces waste and carries its own commercial strength.

“The tallow is a pure fat, made from 100 percent grass-fed and finished beef with no additives,” he says. “You’re talking energy and fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, plus a naturally high smoke point. If you combine that with our broth and organ supplements, you have a very simple toolkit for supporting gut health, joints and overall vitality using traditional foods rather than ultra-processed shortcuts.”

Mitchells built its early following through health stores, specialty retailers and direct-to-consumer channels. For a long time, supermarkets weren’t on the vision board. The brand was still small, capacity constrained and sitting in a category that felt too early for the mainstream.

“I feel like five years ago we weren’t considered a supermarket brand,” Mitchell says. “The market wasn’t ready. We didn’t have the capacity, we didn’t have the team, and with big retailers you kind of get one shot. When you go, you need to be ready to deliver and keep delivering.”

What changed was largely consumer-driven. Interest in whole foods, simplified ingredient lists and nose-to-tail eating surged, while skepticism around ultra-processed products and certain seed oils moved from the fringes to family dinner tables. By the time Woolworths came calling, beef tallow no longer felt experimental, rather it was the missing option in the spreads and oils aisle.

The early read on demand has reinforced this view, says Mitchell. “Having it on mainstream shelves has made the shift really obvious. Our tallow is in more than 100 Woolworths supermarkets now, proving Kiwis are clearly open to simpler, more traditional options.”

This domestic traction is now feeding into Mitchells’ export push. “We want to keep growing in this channel, and our sights are also on markets like Australia, the UAE and Japan. We’re already talking with Woolworths Australia, which is a real benefit of being part of the Woolworths group here in New Zealand. It makes it easier to open the door to wider conversations across the network.”

Mitchell is candid about the less romantic side of growth. Working capital and the cost of scaling production can trip up even the best ideas. His advice to other Kiwi founders is blunt – family enthusiasm is not market validation, and optimism doesn’t pay invoices.

“Your mum, dad and mates will all tell you it’s great. That’s not validation,” he says. “You need people outside your network paying for it and giving you honest feedback. And you need to plan for it going well. If you believe in it, make sure it’s capitalised properly, because very few businesses grow cleanly out of cash flow alone.”

Mitchells today is a team of eight based in Mount Maunganui, covering production, operations, marketing, sales and retail partnerships, with manufacturing kept firmly in New Zealand.

The founder has gradually hired around his weaker spots so he can focus on the part of the job that “really spins his wheels” – R&D and innovation. “We have a pretty long ‘wish list’ of NPD which we are always refining and adapting to the market and our customers’ needs. We have some exciting new products coming to market in early 2026 so watch this space.”