A leading venison producer has called for more government support and collaboration for the sector as he pointed to the high sustainability levels of venison.
Christian Nissen, chief executive of Dundee-based Highland Food Group, which employs 100 staff at its processing facility, said the venison sector should be seen as ‘complementing, not competing with’ more mainstream agriculture in Scotland.
Speaking exclusively to The Scottish Farmer, Mr Nissen said wild venison should be included in the marketing activities of Quality Meat Scotland, especially given its environmental credentials which he said studies conducted by the James Hutton Institute had shown wild venison accounts for 1.1g of C02 per 100g, while farmed beef was 25g of C02 per 100g.
Mr Nissen also called for £25m in sector support to cover marketing and have ‘boots on the ground’ of ‘enthusiastic and knowledgeable’ people.
He said: “QMS does a great job for marketing Scotch Beef, Scotch Lamb and Specially Selected Pork. With high quality Scottish Venison becoming readily available, the natural course is to work better together because we all represent the meat trade.
“More and more customers, be it wholesalers, manufacturers, contract caterers and retailers are now becoming aware of the importance of venison as an alternative red meat protein.
“Arguably, as our climate emergency continues to deepen, the relevance of venison as a halo protein for Scottish red meat should be nourished and brought into the fold to widen the appeal of red meat when in some quarters it is being viewed negatively. He added: “I think we are not being regarded as the industry that we are – we don’t get funding or support, yet there is an ambition in the Scottish Government that we are to help tackle climate change. But venison has a really good story.”
“The farming industry gets substantial support in order to keep providing food – I accept that and I’m only asking for a relatively small sum so that I can harvest deer and offer a product which provides the best credentials and protects tree planting. Over browsing by deer causes significant damage to trees and their bio-diversity at great cost”
“We are not hurting the Scottish farmer, we are assisting them, by harvesting venison from their land.
“If the Scottish Government helps our sector, it will also help the Scottish farmer as many farmers have to manage deer to a less of greater degree as they graze on farmland too.
“I want to see procurement teams within government to take our products on board and look at the protein we provide and carbon reduction potential as well.”
Mr Nissen said progress has been made in the NHS and schools in England, but more could be done north of the border.
He added: “For Venison to become mainstream our children need to be given access to it in much greater numbers so in future Venison is no longer viewed as a privilege for the few.”
In January, the Scottish Government announced a suite of measures to deal with soaring wild deer numbers which it estimated had risen to around one million – up from around 500,000 in 1990.
Last month, following the collapse of the power sharing deal with the Greens, the Scottish Government announced it ‘will build on the current Cairngorms Deer Pilot to develop a national scheme which incentivises increased management and investment in the venison supply chain.’
The Scottish Farmer put Mr Nissen’s points to QMS.
Sarah Millar, CEO of Quality Meat Scotland said: “QMS remains committed to its core mission of promoting red meat from Scotland, funded 100% by levies from beef, lamb and pork producers.
“While our focus is on Scotch Beef, Scotch Lamb and Specially Selected Pork, we do work collaboratively with Scotland Food and Drink to support the promotion of all food and drink produced in Scotland and would be open to future discussions on how we could support venison producers in Scotland.”
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