Could this be the Year of the Rabbit?
Our Eat New Zealand CE Angela Clifford spoke to Nick from Premium Game - a wild meat business, to explore what it takes to get rabbit on the table and why more of us should be serving it.
While most countries hunt their endemic species, Aotearoa New Zealand hunts its pest species. This fact was recently pointed out by one of our Kaitaki, Hamiora Gibson (Sam The Trap Man).
This philosophy underpins Premium Game, a food business offering our widest range of wild meat. I spoke to Nick Clifford (no relation) about rabbits, and what the opportunities and challenges are of eating one of our most damaging pests.
It’s previously estimated by MPI that rabbits cost New Zealand over $50 million in lost production and then another $25 million in direct pest control a year. That’s effectively $75 million dollars A YEAR of tasty, nutritious meat running around at a time when access to nutritious food is at an all-time low.
Rabbits compete with livestock by eating the best grass, and they also cause extensive land damage from burrowing, causing erosion. They ARE being eaten, but mostly by other pests who then breed to numbers that have a devastating impact on our native species.
Pest control focuses on biocontrol and poisoning, and there is no support in the way of subsidies for a company like Premium Game to shoot and process the rabbits for food.
In fact, there are even regulations which make it more difficult for Nick and his team to hunt rabbits, including a reduced time frame to get rabbits to processing facilities compared to larger animals. This is completely arbitrary and not based on anything to do with food safety.
It’s tough business shooting rabbits. To make it worthwhile a hunter needs to shoot 120-150 rabbits a night, so regions like Central Otago & Dunedin are the only places to make this viable. Add to that the time it takes to process the rabbit compared to a bigger animal. As an example, it takes 3 minutes to skin a rabbit and 9 minutes to skin a deer, much bigger than 3 times a rabbit. It’s still the same amount of ammunition and rabbits need to be hunted at night.
There are also times of the year that rabbits can’t be hunted including lambing season and windy weather.
For all these reasons rabbits end up at about $25 to $26 per kg, bone-in weight. This is almost double the cost of venison (depending on the cut).
Despite this, Premium Game sell about 1000 to 2000 rabbits a month, and mostly to restaurants.
Nick would love more chefs to experiment with it, and by raising awareness about rabbit as meat he’d like to see active work on the compliance end by government to allow it to end up on plates more often.
It’s also important we support wild food businesses such as Premium Game, who are solving multiple problems. They’re getting rid of pests, sourcing high-quality wild meat and contributing to our unique food story.
If you want to try rabbit or other wild meat such as thar, venison, or even wallaby check out their business here: www.premiumgame.co.nz
You can also follow them on IG here: www.instagram.com/premiumgamemeats
