We are working on as many eco-friendly solutions as possible in our business to ensure we adhere to strict food standard guidelines AND think about our impact on the environment. If you are here because you – like us – care about what’s happening to our environment then read on!
Plastic Free
All of our products are either packaged in a plastic free PLA compostable packaging or have this option. Even the delivery bags are paper! We like to encourage compostable materials instead of plastic but we know it can be expensive so you get to choose which one you want. One of the major hurdles of going eco friendly is money – it DOES cost a lot more to use sustainable materials unfortunately. If you can’t afford it all the time, that’s okay! No judgement here – every little change helps.
Recycled Bin Liners
We use 100% recycled bin liners in our bins. This change was enabled in September 2022 after a solid year of looking for a large enough bin liner that met the raw meat waste collection rules. We finally found one from BIN IT. Our non recyclable office waste also goes in a green 100% recycled household bin liner by Revelo.
Recycling
Printing orders, labels, leaflets and receiving deliveries for our office and packaging systems means a lot of recyclable materials. We make sure we pack down any cardboard and printing errors and put them in the recycling. We also use a local plastic recycling point for plastic wrappers and bags. Nothing recyclable gets binned.
Local Electric Deliveries
We recently invested in an electric bike so that we can make our local deliveries by bike and not by car. We aim to one day have a solar powered charging station for the bike and packaging machines so watch this space!
Saving Steel Shot
Because we only use steel shot birds (no nasty lead here), whenever we find a steel shot in the meat we take it out and save it. When we have enough saved up, we plan to melt it down to create something new so watch this space!
Reduce Waste
We are always working on reducing the amount of waste we actually produce – especially the deer itself. We work hard to use every bit of meat we can, making mince from anything that isn’t thick enough to be a cut. In addition, we use the tallow to make candles and soap, the bones to make stock or for doggie treats and the hide to make buckskin for clothing or shoes. We even save the head and antlers if we get them in and prepare them for decorations or for other crafty people to make knife handles etc. For birds, we save the nicer looking feathers for craft projects. Any item not sold gets thrown in our freezer for personal consumption, not thrown in the bin. We also set up our ordering system to ensure there is as little waste as possible – by ensuring every cut on the deer is used. Very little of the deer actually makes it to the bin.
Reusing Materials
We are limited on what we are allowed to reuse in this business but there are some things we can do still. When we make candles we reuse old jars or ramekins – we never buy new ones. Many of the packaging (plastic and pla) comes on cardboard tubes, we save these and donate them to the local school for crafty projects. We use aprons that are washable and reusable instead of those flimsy plastic throw away ones. When we make deliveries we use reusable ice packs.
Low Food Miles
We keep all of our food miles as low as possible. We only accept deer from local land in the West Midlands/Worcs. When we collect deer we collect as many as we can in one go to avoid multiple trips, this works out usually to 1 trip every 2 weeks at the moment. There’s no middle man – so the deer goes straight from the cull to our facility and then to you.
Community
Ethical Game is part of the Ethical Living Group CIC. We run a variety of community projects in the local area including managing and improving diversity along the River Rea across Stirchley (20 hectares). We also teach sustainability skills via Sustainable Life and every year we plant trees to improve canopy cover and create a wildlife corridor across the Rea. Last year we planted over 500 trees!
The Future
Right now we are working on saving up enough money to buy a portable solar panel and battery system to supply the facility with electricity off the grid. This will hopefully be enough to power the mincer, vacuum packaging machine, sealer machine and charge up the e-bike. It is unfortunately not enough to power the lights, commercial fridge or the deep chest freezer – that’s a job for when we have our own shop! If you have any ideas how we could be more eco-friendly and sustainable please do drop us line for a chat!
Season Statistics
