4 Minute Read
With the advent of the £5 poult around the corner, Richard Leach of UK game feed manufacturer Keepers Choice, looks at what’s behind the price hike and what it means for the sector.
With pheasant poults set to cost up to £4.50 this year – and possibly more – and inflation predicted to reach levels not seen since the 1990s, the price of a day’s shooting is sure to rise. The rate charged for poults is perhaps as good a signal as any to the increased outlay the shooting sector can expect in the times ahead. Given our inflationary times, we ask: how far away is the £5 poult?
Theoretically, when it arrives, there will be nothing new about the £5 poult. The archives show that at different points of history – for example, in the 1930s and 1970s – in real terms the cost of a game poult well exceeded the equivalent of £5 today. This tells us that in recent decades, improved technology and economies of scale has made shooting more accessible: if not to all, certainly to more than was the case before. Whether shooting’s looming higher tariff will drive it back to being a pursuit only for the ‘chosen few’ is unlikely – mitigation will come in the form of financial acumen and husbandry competence.
Another factor helping ensure our sport is not out on a limb is that its rising costs are not peculiar to shooting, but across the economy; with the inflation rate predicted to be over 6% for the whole of this year. And on its journey to £5, the poult will be subject to the same anticipated feed price increases as all livestock, regardless of where the rations are sourced. The situation is partly a consequence of a lower-than-expected cereal harvest and farmers holding off selling, hoping the market has yet to peak; coupled with a spike in protein sources, feed commodities are significantly more expensive across the board.
Add to the mix the rising cost of energy and its impact on transport and incoming freight – imported minerals, vitamins and other supplements have increased three-fold and more in some cases – and it brings home the harsh realities. Even plastic bags – like the whole of packaging – carry a higher price tag, not least because oil is a constituent of their manufacture.
Some in the energy sector are projecting gas and electricity to be subject to 70% inflation before the end of 2022 (chick prices are already reported as 10% higher than last year): the inevitable knock-on effect on buildings and repairs necessary for game rearing brings the dawn of the £5 poult closer still. And these higher costs not only contribute to the price of the poult, but also to the general running of the shoot.
Labour costs are up too. It is reckoned that rearing 150,000 birds requires four full-time staff for four months of the year – a period considered to be understated by many on the ground. As legislation to increase the minimum wage comes into force, the bill for employees is up by around 10%; and the whole situation is exacerbated by Covid delaying the supply of almost everything, including labour. In the case of some EU countries, supply of workers has ceased to be an option altogether.
Whilst the £5 poult will be something of a landmark – much like a pint of beer breaking the £5 barrier (which it already has in many London pubs) – the significant issue is how the shooting sector responds to it. It has the potential for a negative and a positive response.
The negative reaction would be simply to cut corners: reduce the specification of feed; make do with less labour; and essentially penny pinch all round in an effort to curb expenditure. This is not the advised approach; yet it is one some will adopt in the vain hope all will be well.
A shortfall in labour risks some jobs being botched, or simply not done at all. Skimping on feed almost always results in birds losing body condition, with the ensuing financial drain of lagging birds. At those times when consumption is low, feed must be designed to maximise nutritional intake so as to permit the natural development of the bird (low-energy feeds initiate high intakes – birds will eat more and overall costs will be higher). In the words of the writer John Ruskin: What is the cheapest to you now is likely to be the dearest to you in the end.
The positive response to the £5 poult is to value the bird even more, giving it the higher status, its higher price merits. Even the best gamekeepers can find ways of upping their game – indeed, constantly seeking improvement is what makes them the best in the first place – and it may well be there is potential to reduce mortality rates, putting fewer birds down and achieving a day’s sport from a smaller (but not necessarily vastly so) bag than in the past. Certainly, the direction of traffic is clearly on the quality of the birds’ shoot, rather than the quantity.
Perhaps one constructive outcome of COVID is a greater appreciation by the participants of shooting driven game, and it follows that numbers shot will not be the overriding factor in determining a successful day’s shooting. Most shoots are already putting down fewer birds – estimated to be 25% less over the last two years – and this will give rise to fewer losses, not least because lower stocking rates give rise to less disease.
The £5 poult is likely to be with us within the next couple of years, it might even manifest itself as soon as 2023. It is to be hoped the advent of it needing a sterling note over coins to purchase this fledging bird will make us value it beyond just its monetary worth. The old adage of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing will serve no more useful purpose in game and conservation than it has done in any other sector.
We must add value at every turn, from the procurement of young stock to the welfare standards we practice; and from the quality of the birds shot to the purposeful use of the quarry thereafter by entering the food chain. To this end, shoots should not hesitate in entering audit schemes such as that administered by British Game Assurance and Trusted Game; by so doing we show proficiency which is added-value in itself, and it also tells the world that self-regulation is not only preferable to the alternatives, but vastly superior.