How One Hawaiian Company Turns an Ecological Crisis Into the World's Most Nutrient-Dense Red Meat
A business rarely generates so many upsides without a downside. However, the Hawaiian brand Maui Nui achieves just that with its wild-harvested Axis deer offerings.
Maui Nui employs high-tech, humane, and healthy methods to help alleviate the ecological devastation caused by the rampant Axis deer in Hawaii. The invasive species has demolished both land and sea.
Maui Nui’s unique process addresses Axis deer overpopulation while creating the most nutrient-dense protein source and reestablishing ecological balance.
Read on for The Feed’s take on the fascinating story behind Maui Nui Venison.
Axis Deer Invasion
Axis deer were introduced to Maui in 1959 and quickly proliferated without natural predators, seasonal stresses, and almost limitless resources. The deer travel uncontrollably, can jump fences, and evade capture. In short, the deer make Maui theirs.
Without management, the Axis deer population could exceed 200,000 in the next twenty years. For comparison, the human population was approximately 164,000 in 2024.
The areas the Axis deer decimate are often mistaken for areas burned by forest or grass fires. And the damage caused is similarly stark.
The Damage
The Axis deer inflict a chain reaction of damage to Maui’s sensitive ecological systems.
The deer eat down an area as far as they can, and then the herd moves to another location. The barren landscape loses the vegetation that secures the topsoil, leaving it prone to wash downhill to the ocean. This runoff impairs near-shore water quality and damages coral reefs while removing organic matter that supports life.
Invasive plant species move into the barren landscapes that the deer leave behind. This compounds the problem of the deer’s insatiable hunger for plant matter. A single deer can eliminate an entire plant species if it becomes a favorite.
This is a few of the many ecological issues related to the Axis deer invasion.
Maui Nui’s Solution
Maui Nui dedicates extensive research, resources and ingenuity to alleviating Axis deer overpopulation. Unlike other food production methods, this process is astonishingly beneficial and sustainable.
Harvesting the animals and processing them for food may seem straightforward. But doing so in a humane, sustainable, and environmentally friendly way involves military technology and logistics, sharpshooters, CrossFit-capable staff, and mobile meat processing.
The path from wild-running Axis deer to meat suitable for human consumption isn’t straight or easily navigable. It took Maui Nui over a decade to perfect its method, an amalgam of military logistics, game hunting and management, ecology restoration, athletic team management, and meat processing.
The Pivotal Tech: FLIR
Axis deer are elusive. After seeing the devastation they inflicted on other islands, officials on the Big Island of Hawaii declared a state of emergency when four were illegally introduced in 2011. It took experts at the Axis Deer Institute, which included the co-founder of Maui Nui, three years to find and remove them.
So right out of the gate, Maui Nui needed to devise a way to locate herds. Hawaii’s severe stance on the four Axis deer was enough for the military to get involved. And that’s when cofounder Jake Muise took note of Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) technology.
Jake understood then that FLIR was the key to finding the animals, which could hide under trees and brush cover. But FLIR detects the animals' heat signature, making this vegetative cover a non-issue. It also made closely inspecting deer at night possible, which is critically important.
The Maui Nui Method: Like No Other
Maui Nui prioritized humane treatment of the Axis deer. Devising a harvesting strategy that would work at a scale large enough to support a business required ingenuity and dedication.
Harvesting
It is a non-negotiable that the deer are wild-harvested, and ideally, they are wild until the very last moment. And that the harvesting does not stress the animals. This is not only for humane reasons but also because stress causes physiological responses that render the meat less safe or tasty. And if the deer senses danger, it will run.
This means harvesting at night when the deer are relaxed and cannot see well. Luckily, FLIR was already in the toolbox. Using FLIR mounted on drones, UTVs and rifles solved this problem.
Harvesting at night is more dangerous. Maui Nui hires, trains and practices safe hunting with military-grade scrutiny and adherence to rules.
Before a shooter can even attempt to harvest a deer, a USDA official must inspect it through FLIR and proclaim that it’s healthy. Interestingly, the FLIR is so sensitive that the inspector can see the bullet passing through the air due to its friction with the air.
When the shooter aims, he targets the very top of the head. The target area is only the size of a silver dollar, and the range is typically 600 feet. This ensures that the animal dies instantly if hit and isn’t injured if it misses. The shooters miss 30% of the time, and the animal walks away.
The deer is truly wild, unaware of human presence, until the very last moment and dies immediately.
Being a 100% field operation that cannot damage the environment or stress the herd, there isn’t a completely mechanical way to transfer the deer to processing. An assigned “Rover” hoists the 95-150-pound animal on their back and hikes it to a UTV. This carry is often between 100 and 400 yards. Then the UTV completes the journey to the mobile processing unit. These Rovers are athletes.
This carry provides a unique connection between human and animal that isn’t present in other meat processing. The animal must be hauled to the processing facility without touching the ground to prevent contamination and bruising.
The goal is to have the animal in the mobile processing unit within an hour. This isn’t flat terrain, and there are no paved roads. As you can imagine, this requires CrossFit-style fitness. So, to say that Maui Nui shooters and Rovers have a broad skill set is a considerable understatement.
The final step in the “harvesting” process is to restore the areas damaged by the Axis deer population. Non-profit groups, often supported by Maui Nui volunteers, replant vegetation, repair erosion, and potentially return these areas to their complete ecosystems before the Axis deer invasion.
Mobile Processing
Once the harvested animal arrives at the trailer-mounted field processing facility, the procedure is rapid, taking as little as a few minutes. The goal is to process 54 deer in each six-hour harvesting shift. And USDA oversight is still in place.
A USDA inspector is present during processing, and a veterinarian examines the remains to confirm that the animal is healthy. Then, two more inspectors must examine the meat before it gets the USDA stamp that renders it safe for human consumption.
No other meat requires this much scrutiny before it hits your dinner plate. And it is voluntary, mandated and paid by Maui Nui. The government does not inspect exotic meats.
This harvesting and processing system produces the only wild game meat publicly available in North America.
The Highest Nutrient Density
Maui Nui’s claim that its venison has the highest nutrient density of any red meat isn’t empty.
Maui Nui sent bone broth to the USDA/FDA lab for analysis as part of making the product label. The lab responded with, “Something is wrong with these bones.” The lab assumed Maui Nui had enhanced the sample with additional protein or collagen because it tested 33% higher in protein per ounce than anything they had ever seen. The lab retested with the same results.
Other labs made identical statements about different parts of the deer that were submitted for analysis. For example, one lab claimed that something was wrong with the heart samples because they contained “too much” choline.
Other Maui Nui venison nutrition statistics:
2 - 4x the antioxidants
8- 64x the healthy fats
22% more protein
100% complete, healthy fatty acid and amino acid profiles
22% of the daily recommended intake of vitamins in a 3.5-oz serving
37% of the daily recommended intake of minerals in a 3.5-oz serving
You can read a complete nutritional analysis report here.
These incredible results can be attributed to the Axis deer freely choosing what to eat to optimize and address health issues. The animal also lives stress-free; this point cannot be overstated.
There is the saying, “You are what you eat, and what you eat ate.” Maui is incredibly fertile, with abundant plants packed with nutrients. The nutritional density of the venison is only possible because of Maui’s thriving and diverse ecology. In a way, eating Maui Nui is eating the local environment.
Do Good, Always
It is easy to understand how Maui Nui helps the Axis deer herd and the island’s ecosystem. But there are other upsides to producing the brand’s venison.
Holo ‘Ai Food-Sharing
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hawaiian Islands suffered food instability. When Maui Nui started its first fresh Holo ‘Ai deliveries in 2020, it shared 62,429 pounds of meat with the local communities for free.
This generosity expanded during the devastating 2023 Maui wildfires. The brand restructured its operations and took on partners to increase its food-sharing capacities.
The Maui Nui Holo ‘Ai food-sharing program has shared over 205,168 pounds of ground axis deer with their local communities, equivalent to 820,672 meals.
Employee Health and Wellness
Anyone who does night shift work understands how disruptive it can be to health and social life. Maui Nui also understands and treats the harvesting teams with grace.
These teams, which only operate at night, work on a 7-day on, 7-day off schedule. This allows their bodies and minds to adapt to swapping waking and sleeping periods. It also gives them the time to operate on a “normal” schedule and be with family and friends.
The Most Nutrient-Dense Red Meat with No Downsides
The Feed is excited and proud to offer and represent a brand and process that delivers such high nutritional value. Finding a commercially available nutrition product that benefits so many things is a rarity.
You may purchase a Maui Nui product here based on its incredible nutritional value. But you are also supporting a venture that is helping to restore a damaged and sensitive ecosystem and a business model that supports the communities around it and within the company.
Sometimes I read a corporate mission statement, and it feels like marketing-speak. But the Maui Nui mission statement rings so true to me:
“To help balance Axis deer populations for the good of our environment, communities, and food systems.”
When you put a Maui Nui product in your shopping cart, you are part of this noble effort. You are also casting a vote for a tagline that also rings true: “Balance over business.”
