Game Dealer prices south midlands

We also have a problem with imported venison coming in cheaper than we are prepared to accept for home grown. This really is the major problem not the loss of catering as it's never been too popular there.
My understanding is that we used to export a lot to Germany and Italy, but Brexit has caused issues.
 
I think that the imported stuff is mostly going into the supermarkets. That trade was relatively unaffected by lockdown I should think. Restaurants etc are the ones who buy from the smaller suppliers, such as game dealers, partly for the provenance. That's the trade that was lost.
But yes, I agree, cheap imported foodstuffs are a major issue, competing with UK produce.
Yes that's where the catering perhaps got their game from, but somewhere somebody is making a lot of money on it. I hear all the talk about costs of butchering etc so venison has to be expensive. Why so?
Live weight beef and lamb is far in excess of £1.50 a kilo and that's with the guts in. So why is venison so expensive when retailed. That's what really annoys me, the crap that we get fed about costs and weights.
 
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Yes that's where the catering perhaps got their game from, but somewhere somebody is making a lot of money on it. I hear all the talk about costs of butchering etc so venison has to be expensive. Why so?
Live weight beef and lamb is far in excess of £1.50 a kilo and that's with the guts in. So why is venison so expensive when retailed. That's what really annoys me, the crap that we get fed about costs and weights.
Lamb is near £3/kg live
 
Lamb is near £3/kg live
Yes it is at the moment, but nobody seems to be able to fathom out why or how! Who's buying it at that price? A 40kg liveweight lamb giving an 18kg carcass only yields about 9kg - 11kg of saleable meat. As a sheep farmer myself I'm certainly not complaining about the current liveweight prices, but it is a bit bonkers.
 
Yes that's where the catering perhaps got their game from, but somewhere somebody is making a lot of money on it. I hear all the talk about costs of butchering etc so venison has to be expensive. Why so?
Live weight beef and lamb is far in excess of £1.50 a kilo and that's with the guts in. So why is venison so expensive when retailed. That's what really annoys me, the crap that we get fed about costs and weights.
As discussed in another thread recently, deer carcass prices will always settle at the lowest common denominator, and in truth it's a very inconsistent product. A badly shot deer will yield very little saleable meat and an awful lot of waste that costs to dispose of. Those are the kind of deer that set the price level.
 
As discussed in another thread recently, deer carcass prices will always settle at the lowest common denominator, and in truth it's a very inconsistent product. A badly shot deer will yield very little saleable meat and an awful lot of waste that costs to dispose of. Those are the kind of deer that set the price level.
Having walk around some big chillers, the inconsistency is noticeably and I always wondered if this was a factor in the price.
 
It's simply they will pay as little as they can as long as they get the quantity they need. I'm sure anyone of us that was running a business would buy the raw materials as cheap as they can. Every person wants to make as much profit as they can.
 
Yes it is at the moment, but nobody seems to be able to fathom out why or how! Who's buying it at that price? A 40kg liveweight lamb giving an 18kg carcass only yields about 9kg - 11kg of saleable meat. As a sheep farmer myself I'm certainly not complaining about the current liveweight prices, but it is a bit bonkers.
So is venison at £1/kg. Go figure…..
 
You don't see many farmers trying to sell chest shot (or even gut shot) sheep, do you?
No but all mine have their heads on, guts in and need to be transported from a mart to an abattoir….. still can’t see your point. And I ain’t seen lamb at £30 odd per kilo but I have venison
 
And I ain’t seen lamb at £30 odd per kilo but I have venison
Lamb loin medallions in Waitrose are £29.99 per kg, so near enough thirty quid. And that's mainstream supermarket stuff. Specialist lamb products with particular provenance, sold direct to the customers through farm shops etc, will be more. Even so, the current high liveweight price of lambs, although very welcome from our point of view, is unsustainable from the processors point of view.

The pricing of wild venison is never going to mirror that of mainstream livestock. The raw material is too inconsistent, and the end product is niche. The start and finish points are just so wide apart.
 
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