Hunting for markets
By : Anna Kocinska
Some may call it gamey, but the unique taste of Polish venison and other wild meats has created a cottage industry bent on supplying these products to Western European tables, as well as bringing foreigners here to shoot the animals for themselves.
The last decade has seen 170 companies spring up to organize game tours for Western European hunters. At the same time, roughly 18 firms also buy and export game meats to Holland, France, Germany and other European countries. Sales to Western Europe have hovered around $20 million-$30 million annually for the last five years, according to the Central Statistical Office (GUS).
A mere 10 companies, however, control the sale and export of roughly 80% of all Polish game meats. One of those companies leading the hunt is Elite Expedition, which has had a concession for the sale and export of venison since 1995. The company has seen its sales from vension exports jump 150% in five years.
"Our first step in this business was organizing hunting tours, mainly for clients from the Mediterranean," said Stanislaw Malec, president of Elite Expedition, the hunting operator and game meat exporter. "It developed quite quickly. Today we have regular customers from all over Europe."
Another company, Las Skwierzyna, has built a steady business out of game exports. "Everything that is harvested in Poland sells completely," said Leszek Molas, director of Las Skwierzyna. "Over the last 10 years, our sales have generated quite a stable profit of 5-8%."
Not everybody is faring as well, however. Many outfits are having difficulty meeting the strict health regulations imposed by European Union (EU) countries, which are preventing the market from growing further.
"The market for Polish game is not saturated yet," Malec said. "It's highly appreciated on Western tables."
Domestic companies are also hampered by an EU ban imposed on Polish pork products since 1993 the result of a fear that some pigs had cholera. That ban completely blocks them from selling one of the more predominant types of game meat, wild boar. The situation is further aggravated by the fact that Poland itself only consumes 30% of the boar meat harvested annually.
Tough standards
Game meat exporters all toss around the same acronym: HACCP. The EU's quality and health regulator, the HACCP, determines what kinds of meats can be imported into the rich trading bloc. And those guidelines have become stricter as time has passed.
"Even before Poland's accession to the European Union, restrictive controls were being held by the EU inspectors," Malec said.
Three Polish game exporters have already had difficulty meeting those standards. In February, three out of four companies monitored by EU inspectors failed the test. Only one, Las Skwierzyna, passed.
Las Skwierzyna's Molas said that his company has been exporting meat to the EU for 30 years, and that controls have never been as strict as they are now. "Our company has undergone controls every three to four years since 1968, but the new regulations are definitely harder on us," he said.
Poland has asked for a transition period for its meat-processing industry when it joins the EU. Plants need to be modernized before steep EU meat industry requirements can be met, exporters said. At the same time, however, Poland needs to implement stricter veterinary controls at home, they said.
Elite Expedition's Malec said that many companies are preparing to meet the challenge by modernizing their facilities now. "We had to invest up to zl. 25,000 in every one of the 100 game-purchasing centers we use," Malec said.
Those investments, however, lead to higher costs a fact that Malec said has made it more difficult for his company to compete with other producers. "While we chose a straight path to the EU, other companies have done nothing to modernize for years," he said. "Their costs are minimal and it makes competition unfair."
Because Polish authorities do not strictly enforce their own regulations, many companies operating in this country can get by with slack, and cheap, procedures, Malec said. He said that the country's lax enforcement only weakens firms in the long term, making it nearly impossible for them to actually meet EU regulations when they are finally introduced.
Las Skwierzyna, one of the leading firms in Poland, which exports more than 1,000 tons of game meat per year, had no option but to modernize. "Since the early '90s, 80-90% of our profit has been invested in modernization," Molas said. "We did it on our own, so if the government plans some kind of financial support (for the sector), it will come too late."
While the hygiene requirements are strict, they are not the main impediment to the industry's growth, Molas said. The biggest barrier is the ongoing EU ban on Polish pork products, he said. He said that the ban is unjustified as vets here have never found a case of cholera. "It was a political and economic decision at the same time," Molas said. "It's how the EU defends its market."
Free to hunt
Under communism, one state-owned company, called Przedsiebiorstwo Produkcji Lesnej LAS, dealt with all game exports through its 22 local branches. Almost all of the 18 firms that now export meat were founded within the last 10 years. In addition, most of the 170 firms established to organize tours are new.
"Hunting definitely benefited from the introduction of the market economy," said Janusz Skalecki, president of Lowex, one of the first hunting tour operators established after 1989.
He said that the growing popularity of hunting activities and the subsequent growing demand for Polish game has led to higher meat prices. He said that prices have risen 25% in real terms since 1989.
He said that deer meat now sells for an average price of DM 13 per kilogram. Foreigners, who for the most part come to hunt deer, will pay DM 1,000 for an entire animal.
While popular, hunting is fairly tightly controlled. Both hunting tour operators and meat companies have to negotiate with groups of hunters who actually shoot the game. Those hunters, in turn report to forest officers, and together they come up with quotas for how much game can be "harvested" in a given area.
At the same time, both the groups and the state-supervised hunting area sell game to registered retailers, who sell full carcasses of game meat or smaller cuts locally and abroad.
Roe and red deer sell the best, exporters said. Prices for such meat can reach zl. 14 per kilogram for a carcass with its skin.
In the 1998-1999 season 42,000 deer and 142,000 roe were harvested. According to exporters, Polish game meat is in great demand despite the fact it is sometimes more expensive than Western European venison. That is due largely to its high quality and, in the case of deer, to the animal's size, as deer in Poland are larger.
Both of those things are possible, exporters and hunt organizers said, because much of Poland's wild game roams free. "Connoisseurs can always tell the difference between farm-raised venison and wild game meats," Malec said. "Polish game meat still have this unique aroma and taste because animals here still live in or close to the wild."
Free to roam
In one sense, Poland owes its excellent game to communism's nationalization of forests, Malec said.
"In Poland, hunting areas are vast, a minimum of 3,000 hectares, and this enables game to move freely," he said.
In addition, unlike elsewhere, forests in Poland tend not to be fenced, Malec said. In Germany, for instance, hunting areas are smaller, have to be fenced, and owners can keep as much game as they want even on areas as small as 200 hectares. "And that can already be called breeding," he said.
Poland outlawed the breeding of wild animals in its 1995 act on game. Game farms, however, are common in other countries such as New Zealand and the United States. In New Zealand, deer breeding has replaced sheep breeding and venison has become a popular product on European and American tables.
"For years, we have been trying to keep game as wild as possible," Malec said. "Of course, it's not always possible because even if you only feed wild animals during particularly freezing winters, it's already a human interference into wildlife."
Wildlife in Poland is conserved and protected by an army of 9,300 forest officers and forest guards. While strong, those forces are sometimes not enough to keep illegal poachers at bay. And poachers take many forms.
"Poaching has also been growing on the areas of former state farming cooperatives where the unemployed hunt to support their families," said Jan Blaszczyk, hunting specialist with the State Forests.
Legal hunting requires a permit from the Polish Hunting Association. Animals are hunted under the supervision of the State Forests' regional officers. To get approval, hunting groups must submit detailed harvesting plans for a particular area.
Those estimates are made by counting the game available in early spring. The annual quota of game is then determined from that number. Those quotas take into consideration both the necessity of protecting wildlife, and the need to cull animals that have become too abundant in a particular area.
Any animal considered to be endangered is taken off the list. One case in point is the elk, whose population has dropped significantly in recent years. Elk may soon be considered an endangered species and protected, officials said.
There are a total of 5,400 areas in Poland controlled by the State Forests and local authorities, and used by various hunting groups. On the remaining 284 areas, which occupy almost 2 million hectares of land and forests, hunting is organized by officials with the State Forests.
Long forgotten taste
The Polish market could be the best place for the wild boar meat that the EU has rejected. The problem is that the meat is not very popular on its home turf. Nor is deer or elk, exporters said.
Part of the reason is that traditional Polish hunting cuisine almost disappeared after World War II. Dwory, houses situated in the country, that belonged to Polish nobility kept such cuisine alive for centuries. But those habits vanished with communism as old private property became public.
"Delicacies known to hunters for ages would completely disappear if not for cooks from Orbis, the state hotel network, who tried to reintroduce game meat dishes in their menus," Malec said. "A grand comeback of game meat is possible, but we need to invest a lot in promotion."
Some restaurateurs have dug through the old recipes of their grandmothers in an attempt to bring back the tradition. One restaurant, Dziupla, situated some 15 kilometers from Warsaw, specializes in serving venison.
"Venison is a very difficult kind of meat to prepare since it's practically fat free," said Jacek Zawadzki, owner of Dziupla, which is situated next to the Kampinoski National Park. "The wrong temperature will make game meat too hard to chew."
He said that in 1995 the restaurant switched from serving primarily pork to fish. While not very much in demand at first, game meat is slowly becoming more popular, he said.
"Today, we have regular clients," he said.
Zawadzki said that while many Poles like the taste of game meat, the price tends to put them off. What discourages them is the price barrier, "venison is frightfully expensive," he said. Roast roe venison at Dziupla costs zl. 25 per 100 grams, the price of an entire entree at many nice restaurants in the capital.
