Why Do We Need to Increase Game Consumption?

This seasonal glut has led to a dramatic drop in the price that game dealers have been able to pay to shoots and could become a real worry for shoot managers. This in turn could prove costly for game farmers, if shoots are unable to sell dead game then they may need to reduce their shooting activities and therefore order less poults.

Of course, some shoots do a very good job of selling their shot game, and small industries have sprung up providing a good source of extra income to the shoot.

Many solutions have been tabled, but the one that I think merits further consideration, is to expand the UK domestic market. Currently game is sold as a seasonal luxury item. 

An oven ready pheasant retails for £10 per kilo online with breasts at £30 per kilo.

Chicken on the other hand has become an everyday staple. A report from the Telegraph in October 2013 stated that we eat 2.2 million chickens a day in the UK.

A Tesco’s Organic chicken retails for £6.95 per kilo and corn fed chicken breasts are £13 per kilo. At the other end of the market a standard medium chicken is £2.70 a kg.

If recent figures are correct, we release around 35 million pheasants in the UK of which only 14 million make it to the chiller. That’s less than a weeks’ worth of chickens. The demand for poultry meat is certainly high we just need to do a bit of marketing and sort out our prices.

Game meat should be seen as an affordable luxury. A seasonal alternative to chicken.
Currently it is relatively expensive and obviously people just aren’t prepared to pay those prices.

As once a part of the Asparagus Growers Association I am aware of the marketing tactics used by others looking to increase the consumption of luxury food groups. In that organisation, there was a countdown to the beginning of the asparagus season with a race by members to be the first to get their product to market.

A huge hype was created by employing chefs and food bloggers to talk about different recipes and to encourage consumers to make the most of the short season.

A few ideas spring to mind: Pheasant Fajitas, Pheasant Dunkers, Partridge Paella and Partridge Skewers with Bang Bang sauce. Recipes that will attract a new audience.

Funding these initiatives will always be a problem. The Asparagus growers requested that each member pay an amount per acre of crop harvested. Perhaps birds released could be a shooting alternative.

Whatever the answer to over-supply is, it certainly isn’t just carrying on as normal. Something needs to be done in addition to the already fantastic work of the Country Food Trust, who are turning pheasants into “Country Casseroles” and partridges into “Country Curries” for those who need it most.

It is the responsibility of every industry involved within shooting to promote the sale of shot game, not just the shoots and game dealers.

Written by: Nick Pardoe, Chairman of the Game Farmers Association.