Winning Game

For many of us eating game is so much part of our lives that we barely think about it, but we should do next week which is Great British Game Week. We should think about not only eating plenty of game ourselves (not a tough job), but also introducing it to others because ensuring that there continues to be a market for every bird that is shot is probably the single most important element in the promotion and defence of shooting.

That is why the Countryside Alliance, the British Game Alliance (BGA) and the British Association for Shooting and Conservation's Taste of Game campaign are collaborating on Great British Game Week is. We have joined forces to promote game across the country, in shops, restaurants and pubs.

Taste of Game will be promoting game at BBC Good Food Show in Birmingham inducing a whole new audience to healthy game meat giving away tasters and creating some fantastic dishes.

Meanwhile, the BGA team will be on the streets of Bristol and London with the 'Eat Wild' van, serving tasters of commercial game products and promoting the nutritional and sustainable benefits of game meat.

The importance of stimulating the demand for game is why the Alliance alongside the shooting industry and other shooting organisations created the BGA and are so determined that it will be a success. The BGA has already had a significant impact on the game market. Whilst pheasants and partridges may not yet be reaching historic values there is a solid market in the UK, Europe and further afield for high quality British game products.

The BGA's role is to find new markets for game, and crucially also to create a shoot assurance scheme which guarantees standards in the shooting industry and gives assurance to consumers.

Hundreds of shoots have already joined and signed up to the British Game assurance scheme. During Great British Game Week I would encourage you not just to eat plenty of game and feed it to others, but also to ask whether the shoot where you harvest that game is a BGA member and adhering to its standards.