Steve Savicki
08-12-2005, 09:48 AM
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1761382005
RESTAURATEURS face a costly start to the grouse-shooting season on Friday as it emerged that each bird might cost them £30 this year - around double the price of 2004.
Some industry experts have predicted that poor nesting weather and diseases in the grouse moors may mean that the Glorious Twelfth might herald the worst season since 1950.
The meagre supply - highlighted in this week's Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine which is predicting the surge in prices - coupled with the high demand of gourmets, have led many in the industry to warn of skyrocketing prices. Carlo Coxon, the chef at Edinburgh's fine-dining restaurant The Grain Store, said that high prices might mean grouse will be off the menu in Scotland.
"If it's double the price, you can't sell it on to the customer. The [grouse] will end up in London restaurants, where people can afford it," he said.
But a Scottish supplier of fine foods said the inflated prices were unlikely to last long. Prices are high early in the season because of the cachet of eating the newly-available game, according to Craig Stevenson, the foods manager at the Kilmarnock-based poultry and game dealer, Braehead Foods.
Stevenson said his company has already received orders from restaurants as far afield as New York, which draw customers by promising to serve birds shot the previous day. "It's quite normal to see high prices early in the season," he said. "It's the first harvest and people want what's new.
"But the price can drop by as much as half within two to three weeks. It's not unusual to see the price of grouse drop from £6-7 a bird to £3-4."
Those unlikely to be hurt by the price increases are the grouse shooters themselves, according to Robert Rattray, the head of estate agent CKD Galbraith's sporting department. "For those who do their shooting commercially, the prices won't fluctuate," he said. "Normally, a team of guns is contracted to receive a brace of birds. And we set the prices when bookings were made last winter." He added that most sportsmen arrange packages in which their grouse are prepared the evening after the shoot.
In England, grouse stocks are estimated to have plummeted by 50-90 per cent from last year's record-breaking season. Parasitic worms in the gut of grouse reduced the number of chicks produced during the spring and led to the death of thousands of birds over the past three months.
In Scotland, where the sport is worth at least £17 million a year to the rural economy, the outlook is more mixed. Mr Rattray said "There will be estates all over the Highlands that will have no shooting at all. Conversely, there will also be quite a good number of estates that have great populations. There is no particular rhyme or reason as to why this is the case."
"a team of guns is contracted"- scary thought when applied to the Bush administration
RESTAURATEURS face a costly start to the grouse-shooting season on Friday as it emerged that each bird might cost them £30 this year - around double the price of 2004.
Some industry experts have predicted that poor nesting weather and diseases in the grouse moors may mean that the Glorious Twelfth might herald the worst season since 1950.
The meagre supply - highlighted in this week's Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine which is predicting the surge in prices - coupled with the high demand of gourmets, have led many in the industry to warn of skyrocketing prices. Carlo Coxon, the chef at Edinburgh's fine-dining restaurant The Grain Store, said that high prices might mean grouse will be off the menu in Scotland.
"If it's double the price, you can't sell it on to the customer. The [grouse] will end up in London restaurants, where people can afford it," he said.
But a Scottish supplier of fine foods said the inflated prices were unlikely to last long. Prices are high early in the season because of the cachet of eating the newly-available game, according to Craig Stevenson, the foods manager at the Kilmarnock-based poultry and game dealer, Braehead Foods.
Stevenson said his company has already received orders from restaurants as far afield as New York, which draw customers by promising to serve birds shot the previous day. "It's quite normal to see high prices early in the season," he said. "It's the first harvest and people want what's new.
"But the price can drop by as much as half within two to three weeks. It's not unusual to see the price of grouse drop from £6-7 a bird to £3-4."
Those unlikely to be hurt by the price increases are the grouse shooters themselves, according to Robert Rattray, the head of estate agent CKD Galbraith's sporting department. "For those who do their shooting commercially, the prices won't fluctuate," he said. "Normally, a team of guns is contracted to receive a brace of birds. And we set the prices when bookings were made last winter." He added that most sportsmen arrange packages in which their grouse are prepared the evening after the shoot.
In England, grouse stocks are estimated to have plummeted by 50-90 per cent from last year's record-breaking season. Parasitic worms in the gut of grouse reduced the number of chicks produced during the spring and led to the death of thousands of birds over the past three months.
In Scotland, where the sport is worth at least £17 million a year to the rural economy, the outlook is more mixed. Mr Rattray said "There will be estates all over the Highlands that will have no shooting at all. Conversely, there will also be quite a good number of estates that have great populations. There is no particular rhyme or reason as to why this is the case."
"a team of guns is contracted"- scary thought when applied to the Bush administration