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New Project to Focus on Improving Low Ground Venison Supply Chain

A new venison project launching this month will explore ways to help low ground deer managers improve the infrastructure for handling and chilling venison carcasses and increase throughput. The pilot project will assess additional potential outlets for the venison produced, and interrogate any barriers for these initiatives, as well as possibilities for part-funding of small and micro-scale chillers.

The £119k pilot fund, secured by NatureScot and SAOS (the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society) will see SAOS working closely with Lowland Deer Network Scotland and Scottish Venison.

Funding of up to 50% of capital costs will be available to successful applicants. Application for funding is through a straightforward process, with an assessment panel then selecting successful projects.

John Bruce, Chair of Lowland Deer Network Scotland, explained their initial involvement: “LDNS undertook a survey asking deer managers about their vital venison handling capacity, in particular their chilling requirements. We had 125 responses, with 70 requiring support for improved facilities, six looking to open commercial processing facilities, and the remainder seeking access to simple approved facilities which would permit their carcasses to advance into the public food chain. These people estimated that their cull could increase by 1,000 animals a year with these improvements. This new pilot project will make a positive contribution to addressing the issues.”

Pete Moore of the NatureScot Wildlife Management Team added: “Over the last few months, we have listened to the views of the deer management sector about the need to increase funding for venison supply chains, particularly in low ground parts of Scotland. This pilot scheme is a positive step forward and will provide direct support to deer managers in these areas to improve infrastructure and increase venison production, with the potential for this to feed into the wider market. The project should also give us further insight into the possibilities, and potential barriers, for improvements to the low ground venison supply chain in future.”

Richard Cooke, Chairman of Scottish Venison, commented on the project’s potential: “This is an excellent initiative, building on the work already underway with the three pilot chill projects in Dumfries & Galloway, North Argyll, and Moray, which are supported through the Covid Recovery Fund. It is also absolutely in line with the Scottish Venison strategy to develop capacity for safe and legal collection, chilling, and processing of venison locally across Scotland’s low ground, with a view to increasing the harvest of venison from our roe deer population and getting that to market as a priority. We look forward to seeing some interesting projects coming forward for support.”

The scheme is open for submissions from stalkers and groups from January 31^st and will run until March 20^th, with successful applicants notified by the end of March.

SAOS staff are available to help with applications, initial enquiries should be directed to venison@saos.coop

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NatureScot: NatureScot is Scotland’s nature agency. We work to enhance our natural environment in Scotland and inspire everyone to care more about it. Our priority is a nature-rich future for Scotland and an effective response to the climate emergency. For more information, visit our website at www.nature.scot

Lowland Deer Network Scotland: LDNS is a defined network and forum in which lowland deer managers have a voice and national representation. It provides a mechanism to sense check and ground truth, with lowland land managers and deer stalking practitioners, the new areas of policy development and changing legislation against a backdrop of the increased focus on loss of biodiversity and the climate emergency. LDNS is essential to help facilitate information exchange and provide opportunities to improve awareness around changes to legislation, policy, best practice for venison and the management of deer.

Scottish Venison is the representative organisation for private and public sector, producer and processor, upland and lowland, and wild and farmed venison interests in Scotland. More information at www.scottish-venison.info

SAOS was established as a Society to further co-operation in Scottish agricultural organisations in 1905. While co-operation remains key, this remit has expanded to strengthen the position of Scotland’s farming and rural businesses in their supply chains, through innovation, technology, data, quality assurance and climate change response. SAOS is a co-op, owned by around 60 member co-operatives whose collective turnover is nearly £1.5 billion. ALL ENQUIRIES TO venison@saos.coop

31 January 2025

Chillers and processing premises.

The results of the survey,” What do you have and what do you want” have been vital to the consideration by the Scottish Government and NatureScot as to how to assist the sector to modernize and improve the infrastructure required to process deer into venison suitable for entry into the commercial food chain. We have had a number of false starts to the initiative but now have a £85,000 funding commitment which will be advertised soon by the organization Scottish Agricultural for Organisation Society Ltd, SAOS, https://saos.coop/  . This organisation has much experience in assisting co-operative collaborative projects in the agricultural sector, it is experienced in project funding and has been advising “Scottish Venison”, (SV), the sectorial organisation attempting to elevate interest in venison commercially to improve the marketing and prices attained for venison, so they are well placed to assist in this initiative. They will be able to advise those considering the commitment for domestic or commercial development, I will continue to focus on procurement and market research to find good suitable products and hopefully negotiate a discount for those engaging in the LDNS area.

The survey was advertised nationally in Scotland by sector organizations and by social media.

 127 responses were submitted, of those 70 engaged completely with a desire to improve their capacity to chill and or process their deer and the deer of others. 4 responses have to be set aside but of the 66, the remaining 6 want to develop processing firms and 60 or so want personal chillers.

The majority want space for batches of 5/10 roe, 8 want  to accommodate batches of 15/20, 13 want to be able to chill more than 30 deer in a batch.

Before firming up with suppliers which models they may offer at a discount there is a need to define more clearly what is needed; chill only or with processing capacity, designed for internal use or designed to be freestanding and weather-proof, with services included, or provided separately and what capacity on a weekly basis, (batch size), and which species. A new survey specifically addressing these final details will be in the questionnaire conducted by SAOS.

Through my role I was intending to assist in a scheme whereby chills and processing premises might be supplied by the Government, but this will not now happen.

There will be some support for individuals to acquire or to build their own chills / processing premises and for additional tools and equipment through a grant scheme.

 There may be just a short period in which people can apply for support for units or premises or grants to develop existing buildings to meet the standards required, probably commitment will be required before the end of March 2025.

It is just possible that once news of such a project becomes public that demand may increase further. We are aware that there may be more demand than what we can supply, not everyone will get what they want, those that offer to share or collaborate or co-operate with others will be of particular interest to the scheme administrators.

I declare that I am undertaking this role of administrator with no great commercial gain for me intended, I would simply like to see an improvement in the standard of “larders” used across Scotland.

Regards

John Bruce

Chair LDNS.

adm1nldns@gmail.com

07971174316

All enquiries should be directed to venison@saos.coop