31
Average per capita quantity of
game meat consumed annually
by high-level consumers of
game in Scotland
We made an estimate of the mean number of meals including
game meat consumed per week and per year by high-level
consumers of game using a survey conducted by the Food
Standards Agency in Scotland (FSAS 2012). This study reported
a survey of game consumption rates derived from quantitative
questionnaires administered to respondents during semi-
structured interviews conducted in Scotland in 2011. People
involved in the management and use of wild game were
contacted and asked to participate in the study. These contacts
included butchers, game dealers, members of shooting clubs,
farmers, gamekeepers, beaters and gun shop proprietors.
Respondents identified others known to them, who were not
necessarily working in the same types of enterprises as the
initial contacts, who ate wild game frequently and who were
then also asked to participate. In total, 311 subjects were
asked about their level of consumption of wild game and the
interviews showed that 200 of these reported consuming wild
game at least once per week during the shooting season. This
level of consumption was taken by FSAS (2012) to represent the
definition of a high-level consumer of wild game and our further
calculations are only performed on the results from the 200
high-level consumers defined in this way.
Of the high-level consumers of wild game, 79% reported eating
wild game once or twice per week during the shooting season
and 21% ate wild game more frequently (three or more times
per week) during the shooting season. All but two of the 200
high-level consumers also reported on their consumption of
wild game outside the shooting season. Thirty-two percent of
these high-level consumers reported eating wild game once or
twice per week outside the shooting season and 9% ate wild
game more frequently (three or more times per week) outside
the shooting season. Raw data from the survey kindly provided
to us by FSAS, show that 41% of high-level consumers reported
eating wild game at least once per week throughout the year
(both within and outside the shooting season) and 9% ate wild
game at least three times per week throughout the year.
We used the raw data from the FSAS (2012) survey to make an
estimate of the mean number of wild game meals consumed
per week throughout the year by high-level consumers. To do
this, it was first necessary to estimate the proportion of high-
level consumers eating wild game during the shooting season
on average 1.0 – 2.0 times per week, 2.0 – 3.0 times per week,
and so on up to 6.0 – 7.0 times per week. We assumed that wild
game was not eaten on more than seven occasions per week.
Since the proportion of high-level consumers eating wild game
on 1.0 – 3.0 occasions per week is much higher (79%) than the
proportion eating game on 3.0 – 7.0 occasions per week (21%,
see above), it seems plausible that the proportion of consumers
eating game at each progressively higher number of occasions
per week diminishes exponentially (i.e. by the same proportion)
for each stepwise increase in consumption rate of one game
meal per week. If this is the case, the proportions of high-level
consumers eating wild game during the shooting season 1.0 –
2.0 times perweek, 2.0 – 3.0 times perweek, and soon up to6.0 –
7.0 times would be 54%, 25%, 12%, 5%, 3% and 1% respectively.
These proportions were obtained by calculating numerically
the rate of exponential decline per occasion in the proportion of
consumers in each one occasion per day category which would
result in 79% being in the 1.0 – 3.0 occasions per week category
and 21% being in the 3.0 – 7.0 occasions per week category.
Outside the shooting season, the proportions of high-level
consumers reporting wild game consumption in the categories
never, less often than once a month, at least once a month, at
least once a fortnight, at least once per week and three or four
times per week or more are 20%, 6%, 26%, 16%, 31% and 1%
respectively for consumers who atewild game once or twice per
week during the shooting season. The equivalent proportions
of out-of-season consumption for consumers who ate wild
game three or more times per week during the shooting season
are 7%, 0%, 5%, 10%, 37% and 41% respectively. These results
for consumption within and outside the shooting season were
combined by converting them to mean daily consumption
rates (game meals per day) for the two periods and multiplying
by the number of days in the shooting season and outside it.
For this purpose, the duration of the shooting season was taken
to be 124 days, which is the season for pheasant shooting. Had
the shooting seasons for all game animals been merged, their
combined duration would have been larger than this. However,
because pheasants comprise the majority of wild-shot birds
eaten by people in the UK (PACEC 2006), adopting their season
alone seems reasonable. Based upon these assumptions,
the estimate of the mean consumption rate of wild game
averaged over the whole year for the FSAS sample of high-level
consumers was 1.64 game meals per week or 86 game meals
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