When it comes to product endorsements, it does not get much better than this.
''Lamb is something I've had at some of the best restaurants in the world and these were the best I've ever had ...these lamb chops are so tender that your grandma can take off her dentures and gum them down ...yum!''
So wrote food and travel blogger The YumYum Foodie after visiting Silver Fern Farms' stand at the Food and Wine Classic in Aspen this month.
The three-day event, which celebrated its 31st year, was where ''all the celebrity chefs and rich and famous go'', Silver Fern Farms group category manager Grant Howie said.
That included television celebrity chef Tom Colicchio, from New York, and Thomas Keller, owner of Michelin three-star restaurant the French Laundry in the Napa Valley.
To Mr Howie's knowledge, it was the first time New Zealand red meat had been featured at the event, where tickets for entry cost $US1300.
Silver Fern Farms has been working on the US market, at the top end, for the last couple of years. Its key distributor there is Marx Foods.
Chief executive Justin Marx visited Nokomai Station, in Southland, earlier this year, where he ''got the whole merino story'', Mr Howie said.
He successfully applied for Silver Fern Farms to have a stand at Aspen.
On the stand, the company was offering samples and ''telling the story'' of its Silere Alpine Origin Merino - a joint venture brand with the New Zealand Merino Company - which it unveiled to the US market at the event, and also its grass-fed Angus beef.
While Americans had been eating grain-fed beef for three or four decades, there was a ''real push-back'', with the top end of the market starting to demand grass-fed beef, he said.
Mr Howie described it as a ''manic'' three days and while it was still early days as far as orders, there had already been inquiries.
''The next two to three weeks...that'll be the moment of truth,'' he said.
Silver Fern Farms meat had been sold direct to homes in the US, through Marx Foods, over the past six months. That was gradually growing and he believed the presence at Aspen would ''kick start it''.
While they knew the response at the event was going to be positive, they did not realise it was ''going to be that good'', Mr Marx said, when contacted.
''A vegetarian called us today to let us know that, for some reason, she tried the Silere merino and she is now thinking of switching over to being an omnivore as a result.
''Food and wine magazine editors loved the product. Celebrity chefs loved the product. Our table was absolutely mobbed the entire show, whereas some other tables were almost unvisited,'' he said.
Mr Marx described the Food and Wine Classic as the premier food and wine event in the US ''and certainly one of the most important exhibitions in the world''.
''We still have a tremendous amount of work to do in order to build awareness and develop the market, but we are off to a fast start.''
Mr Marx believed Silver Fern Farms was ''only scratching the surface of their potential''.
''Their product is absolutely delicious; their farmers are very skilled and triple-bottom-line-oriented; their production facilities are impeccable and their marketing team have put together a sophisticated branding package that is in a class of its own.
''We look forward to ... developing the market in the US,'' he said.
From Aspen, Mr Howie travelled to San Francisco where Silver Fern Farms is involved with a pop-up restaurant due to open next month to coincide with the America's Cup.
Spearheaded by award-winning restaurateur Tony Stewart, of Clooney restaurant fame in Auckland, who did the pop-up Kiwi House restaurant in London during the 2012 Olympics, it has been named the Waiheke Island Yacht Club.
The restaurant will seat 120 people and, along with a bar, it will also have a demonstration kitchen where Silere merino, Silver Fern Farms' grass-fed Angus beef and grass-fed venison will be cooked. Silver Fern Farms is the sole supplier of red meat to the restaurant.
Mr Howie was excited about the project, saying the company had never been involved in anything like it before.
The restaurant opens on July 3 and will operate through to the end of December.
''It's literally right on the start-finish line of the America's Cup,'' he said.
Mr Howie believed the US was going to be a key market for Silver Fern Farms' top-end product.
