Shooting Times & Country Magazine

We need them more than they need us

The state of the UK game meat market makes for depressing reading, says Emily Damment, but a collaborat­ive effort could be the answer

The UK game market could hardly be described as healthy. Supply of feathered game outweighs demand, and as Stephen Crouch of the National Game Dealers Associatio­n (NGDA) confirmed, the UK does not have the processing power to cope with the number of birds being shot.

Perhaps the single biggest problem facing gamedealer­s — and coincident­ally the most difficult issue to solve — is the high cost of processing feathered game. Andy Gray, of MC Kelly butchers in Devon, explained further: “The equipment you use to process a pheasant is different from that you’d use for a chicken. Chickens are wet plucked whereas pheasants are dry, which almost always means someone standing beside a machine.

“Some of the bigger outfits have mechanised the process further, but not many. Pheasants are not uniform in size and the bits you hang them from are often damaged, so they don’t favour mechanisat­ion. Mechanisat­ion

also requires capital investment, which usually pays because you’re reducing labour costs, but with game being seasonal and only available for six months of the year, it must have twice as good a payback to justify that expense.”

The seasonal nature of game also creates issues with labour, and steeply rising wages add to the problem. It can take months for dealers to find decent labour for the season, only for them to disappear come summer. Rising wages do not equal a high output of birds, and so dealers find themselves paying more and more for the same product, which cannot fetch a higher price from consumers.

Stephen, who alongside chairing the NGDA also runs Hampshire

Game, explained the resulting issue: “Wages are rising disproport­ionately compared to the price you can sell the birds for. Consumers are only prepared to spend a certain amount on food, and game cannot compete with pork and chicken prices.”

Some larger outfits, such as HFV Parkland & Wild, which sells to Sainsbury’s and Booths, avoid the tricky business of feathered game processing by working closely with other gamedealer­s who supply birds to them, which are then turned into

oven-ready products. These have a higher sale value and particular­ly strong seasonal appeal, but even then, turning a profit is tough.

Nigel Sampson, managing director at HFV, said: “Our package to the supermarke­t is bolstered by the other things we sell, including venison steaks and game mixes.” In short, just selling whole birds wouldn’t work.

It’s a similar story across the board. Gamedealer Nick Lister of Ox Close Fine Foods bolsters his own business with a range of parttime jobs, while Andy Gray explained that he only deals with pheasant because he is doing something useful for the community — in other words, he is facing the pheasant surplus problem head-on. Shoots around him give him the birds, but shockingly it’s still hard for him to make a profit “even when you’re given the pheasants for free”.

The uncomforta­ble fact of the matter is that game shooting often needs dealers more than dealers need game — the power is in their hands.

Elephant in the room

Perhaps the thorniest element of this whole issue is so-called non-toxic shot. With only a tiny percentage of UK game being sold on supermarke­t shelves, where non-toxic birds are a must, lead-shot birds are not yet posing a problem for most British gamedealer­s. However, with over 60% of our gamebirds currently sold in Europe, losing access to that market would send shockwaves through the industry, and all it would take is for the EU to stop accepting lead-shot game.

“That’s 60% of the market we would suddenly have to find here,” said Louisa Clutterbuc­k of the British Game Assurance. “That’s something we need to prepare for, and we should also be proud of British food and try to get it sold here first.”

Even so, a shortage of birds shot with non-toxic ammunition is impacting the small amount of game that does find its way on to supermarke­t shelves. There are more that would put game on their shelves, explained HFV’S Nigel Sampson,

“but only when it can be guaranteed

lead-free”. Supermarke­ts know that the likes of Wild Justice will test their game and headlines hurt.

The fact of the matter is that however we feel about it, the rest of the world views lead as a poison and, as Nick Lister put it: “If we want to encourage new consumers to eat the most sustainabl­e protein on the planet, we can’t be injecting it with poison beforehand.”

Alongside running his gamedealin­g business, Nick is involved in the Let’s Learn Moor initiative, works with catering students to get game into colleges and has opened an education centre to teach people how to process birds properly. His dedication to strengthen­ing the game meat market is evident yet he, and others like him, are held back by limitation­s beyond his control.

It’s clear that the gamedealin­g industry is struggling from oversupply, lack of infrastruc­ture and a weak domestic market. In other industries, oversupply is dealt with by lowering prices; this increases demand and eventually creates a shortage of the product, which in turn means the price can be raised again. The high cost of processing pheasants and partridges makes this impossible for the game meat industry. It is a seemingly unsolvable problem, for which the only possible answer is a collaborat­ive effort across the sector.

“Somehow we have to work together and support the gamedealer

industry,” said Stephen Crouch. “If we don’t sell the product we’re shooting, our industry is finished. That product needs looking after properly and valuing, even if it’s not being paid for, so that gamedealer­s have something decent to work with. So many have stopped because the wastage is too high and it’s just not worth it.”

Collaborat­ion is key

Game chef Tim Maddams echoed the need for more importance to be placed on what happens to the bird after it’s been shot. He commented: “I realise this a somewhat idealistic viewpoint, but some shoots could do a lot more to support their gamedealer.

“Collaborat­ion is key — why can’t the shoots, and therefore ultimately the Guns, pay to have the meat processed and turned into readyto-eat products, which could then be eaten by them, their friends and the local pubs? There are industryle­ading shoots that really are setting a gold standard for game handling and getting their meat to market, as well as factoring its use into their own operations, but for many shoots it seems they don’t really care at all.”

It seems only fitting to end with a comment from Nick Lister, whose dedication to preserving the lifestyle we all love is nothing short of heartbreak­ing if it turns out to be in vain. Nick said: “As an industry, we need to stand together. There are plenty doing things the right way, but everyone needs to be on it. We all want a sport in the future, and if we keep going the way we are now, we won’t. Without having a home for the game once you’ve shot it, what’s the point in doing it?”

“Without having a home for game once you’ve shot it, what’s the point in doing it?”