Had enough of bureaucracy

[co’den]

I'm Montrose
Your welcome to come look at larder have coffee etc

Paul

Cheers Paul, much appreciated. I’m not through Montrose too often but will definitely take you up on the offer.

 

[slider]

According to the following extract from the FSA guide, a stalker can sell in-skin carcasses, within certain geographical restrictions, to a local retailer who supplies directly to the final consumer.
Therefore, it stands to reason that a small local retailer (such as you or I) can buy in-skin carcasses from stalkers within the same geographically restricted area.
Is it the same in the Scottish version of the guide?
View attachment 418935


I shoot and process wild deer too. There is no legal difference between wild and park deer.

Page 16
"To be eligible for this exemption, the preparation and processing of wild game meat must be performed by somebody who played an active part in the hunting process."

So while you don't necessarily need to shoot the animal yourself you effectively need to be there and witness the animal pre and posr mortem.

Wild game guide Scotland

 

[Freeforester]

BREXIT was supposed to remove all the red tape of Europe. It has, but replaced it with the Blue Tape of British clipboards.

Europe is full of small artisan type producers of food products. They don’t even feature on a national or even county scale, but they work in their local community producing high quality food for local people.

Yet here in the UK we tied up with little room for small producers. The Supermarkets have driven this. They don’t want any competition, and their supply chain has followed the example with large monopoly producers and no interest at all from competition commission.

In Scotland there is a contract between Forestry Scotland and one major dealer who in turn supplies supermarkets. Most of the smaller ones are struggling. Farms doing farm meat to consumer also struggling. Trying to find an abbattoir / butcher is near impossible. Yet 30years ago many country butchers had their own small abbattoir. When I lived down south working on farms down in Oxfordshire, there was abbattoirs in Wallingford, Benson, Didcot and Thame. You could take half a dozen lambs in first thing, and pick them up a of couple days later to go straight to customers. It was an hours job to round the sheep up, sort out half a dozen, load them in the van, drop them off, have a cup of tea with the butcher and be back at the farm.

Somehow, we have let large corporates take over. You can’t be a local producer of free range chicken. Well you can if you are only producing very few, but if you want to make money, nae chance. You have to do it at a scale where you can run a production line full time employing veterinary services doing health checks.

They used to blame Europe. Quite rightly the regulations say the animal must be healthy before slaughter. British authorities, probably bowing to pressure from large corporate, interpret this as needing full time veterinary practitioners being employed on sight to check each animal before and after slaughter.

Likewise food production requires full laboratory facilities for testing each and every batch.

Difference is cricket, old boy: we protested and argued against all the nonsensical overweening legislation set up by EU (designed to crush small business in favour of big business), then adhere to the ruling following the vote, whereas in the EU they pay it lip service without complaint, but ignore the ruling thereafter. It’s a cultural thing.

But yeah, a £200 plus per annum charge for telling you a 300 ml bottle of water gathered from your private water supply on a non specific day each year is potable, that makes perfect economic sense to any small producer who drinks and waters his family with it daily…

 

[co’den]

Regulation 853/2004 chapter 1 paragraph 3(e) should allow you to receive carcasses from others assuming you are classed as a local retail establishment.

e) hunters who supply small quantities of wild game or wild game meat directly to the final consumer or to local retail establishments directly supplying the final consumer.

Certainly doesn’t seem to mirror the “wild game guide”.

I’ll have a chat with my local EHO before I spend much more money.

 

[@theroedeerguy]

Unfortunately, whilst the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill does make provision to get rid of the need to have a venison dealers licence, I have not seen anything that would indicate any changes to

Page 16
"To be eligible for this exemption, the preparation and processing of wild game meat must be performed by somebody who played an active part in the hunting process."

Resulting in only AGHE premises being able to purchase in carcasses shot by stalkers with suitable qualifications.

A factor in this being the case is that the AGHE has the added requirement for the carcasses to be inspected by a vet.

 

[Conor O'Gorman]

@Conor O'Gorman I know this is putting you on the spot a bit (apologies) but does BASC have any position on the difficulties faced by small venison producers, and would it be feasible to try to open communications to see if there'd be a way to reduce the prohibitive legislative burdens?

If you could email me the specific barriers you are facing to conor.ogorman@basc.org.uk I can raise this with our deer team to review.

 

[User00056]

If you could email me the specific barriers you are facing to conor.ogorman@basc.org.uk I can raise this with our deer team to review.

Thank you! That's very much appreciated. I'll get an email off tomorrow

 

[User00056]

Unfortunately, whilst the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill does make provision to get rid of the need to have a venison dealers licence, I have not seen anything that would indicate any changes to

Page 16
"To be eligible for this exemption, the preparation and processing of wild game meat must be performed by somebody who played an active part in the hunting process."

That's the crazy part that I just can't understand the reasoning behind. If I can shoot, inspect, process and sell a carcass based on the legal requirements I comply with, starting off with the large game hygiene requirements of the DSC, why can't that same section of the DSC be deemed as also applying to carcasses shot by a third party?

 

[slider]

That's the crazy part that I just can't understand the reasoning behind. If I can shoot, inspect, process and sell a carcass based on the legal requirements I comply with, starting off with the large game hygiene requirements of the DSC, why can't that same section of the DSC be deemed as also applying to carcasses shot by a third party?

I *think* the logic used is that, if you did not shoot the deer or were part of the hunting party, you have no way of confirming that the animal looked healthy before it was shot and you had no opportunity to inspect the gralloch.

 

[User00056]

I *think* the logic used is that, if you did not shoot the deer or were part of the hunting party, you have no way of confirming that the animal looked healthy before it was shot and you had no opportunity to inspect the gralloch.

But that implies zero trust in the chap who shot the deer. If he holds DSC surely that renders him absolutely competent.

 

[slider]

But that implies zero trust in the chap who shot the deer. If he holds DSC surely that renders him absolutely competent.

Trust!, you expect a govt organisation to take things on trust!

 

[@theroedeerguy]

That's the crazy part that I just can't understand the reasoning behind. If I can shoot, inspect, process and sell a carcass based on the legal requirements I comply with, starting off with the large game hygiene requirements of the DSC, why can't that same section of the DSC be deemed as also applying to carcasses shot by a third party?

I think the rationale is that the DSC health checks on the deer prior to and after taking the shot rely on checking parts of the deer which are not present when the carcass is presented in a “lardered state” therefore a greater degree of expertise (veterinary degree) is required to examine the carcass and sign off its suitability for entering the food chain.

Regardless of any reasoning it does remain a frustrating and obstructive policy to have in place, especially given the freedom venison processors south of the border enjoy without any apparent safety issues.

 

[VSS]

Regardless of any reasoning it does remain a frustrating and obstructive policy to have in place, especially given the freedom venison processors south of the border enjoy without any apparent safety issues.

I'm not sure if we really have freedom, or whether it's just a loophole caused by poor wording.
If you lot make enough fuss then instead of your situation being slackened, ours may be tightened.

 

[User00056]

I think the rationale is that the DSC health checks on the deer prior to and after taking the shot rely on checking parts of the deer which are not present when the carcass is presented in a “lardered state” therefore a greater degree of expertise (veterinary degree) is required to examine the carcass and sign off its suitability for entering the food chain

This is what I don't understand. If the preliminary checks by a trained hunter who's also a primary producer are deemed sufficient for him to then process and sell that carcass, why would it then be deemed inappropriate for that same primary producer to process a carcass that had been subject to those very same checks by an identically-qualified third party? It just doesn't make any sort of sense whatsoever.

 

[User00056]

If you lot make enough fuss then instead of your situation being slackened, ours may be tightened.

That comment has cost you a fair amount of my respect. I had expected better of you.

 

[VSS]

That comment has cost you a fair amount of my respect. I had expected better of you.

Well I think it's a genuine possibility, but perhaps you would have been happier had I signed off with a "tongue in cheek" emoji?
(Which we haven't got, but sorely need!).

 

[User00056]

Well I think it's a genuine possibility, but perhaps you would have been happier had I signed off with a "tongue in cheek" emoji?
(Which we haven't got, but sorely need!).

Possibly. I'm not feeling particularly receptive to nuance this evening. In fact, I may retire with a couple of robust drams, partnered with some Lanark Blue in the hope my slumber will afford me dreams of a better world

 

[Freeforester]

I'm going to fire off a letter to Dave Doogan MP and see if he can offer any support and further advice. Appreciate the input from everybody!

There is/was a workaround - at least there was when I was full time at the markets in Grampian; the venison dealers licence aspect permitted you and/or your agent to do the consigning. Providing your mate/s are accredited with trained hunter status and you can provide the trail back from product to carcass there was no issue.
Though my own typical m.o. in the female season was to stalk Monday and Tuesday for a half dozen does or so and then have them prepped for the market the following week, selling last weeks half dozen at the upcoming market, it helped in the buck season where I would be sparing on my own bucks when I could obtain carcasses from my ‘agents’ without issue.

This being said, there is indeed an art to maximising the value of each and every carcase, and a yield of around £200 per doe was pretty much the target I managed to attain (- don’t ask, I’ve not written the book yet!), alongside the small
matter of doing so in such a way as to sell
most if not all on the day.

 

[sauer]

apparently not now Steve

FSS & EHO said very clear as quoted earlier in the thread you can only sell product that you have had a hand in the killing of yourself or you were there.

i didn't / wasn't looking to buy in carcasses .....

where I've been curtailed is the butchery for others own kill....

i argued that i wasn't selling the meat, the carcass had been inspected by the hunter , he declared fit, my records said to same effect, then i would butcher to their spec, and then give back labelled as meat supplied by customer Not For Resale ....

it was for their own home use & i only provided a "butchery Service" but again that quote about dealing in product youve had a hand in killing yourself

makes me wonder for those who get local butcher to do it ....what legislation a butcher has to do this ?


i had guys calling asking for beasts to be done then they blatantly said on phone they would sell it on locally ... i refused to deal with them
there's is a market there if you push a bit ... both as Stuart got his at markets and locals ... i had a good half dozen or so locals wanting their carcasses done and it was growing. id have hope / thought if i wasn't selling the meat and the hunter had certified it fit for purpose and he kept it, id be ok to process for them but nope

alongside this i was doing my own stuff obviously and we eat lot of it ..... 15yr & 16yr old boys !! but im struggling to supply local supply
ill just need to get out and try get more ground / permission .....not easy

seems screwed up in general when your personally needing more carcasses yet others don't have an outlet cant get rid of em


even if they get rid of the VDL ( its just a costly piece of paper ) it still has hunter exemption , requiring only sell product you had a hand in killing yourself still. most local authority quote up to 300x carcass per year under hunters exemption then above say you must be AGHE, and thats a whole different level!

Paul

 

[@theroedeerguy]

If not already done, you should also raise the barriers directly to Scottish Venison.

If the Scottish Government are looking to encourage a greater number of wild venison processors, this is the sort of obstacle that would benefit being reviewed.

Scottish Venison Association

Everything you might want to know about Scottish venison from both wild and farmed deer.

www.scottish-venison.info