Selling Rabbits

[nighthunter 4]

I've looked into this in the past with the environmental health dept and the situation is an odd one.

 

You can sell "small amounts" (not defined in the law) and you do not need any food prep areas , hand washing facilities, chillers, nothing. You can go to the toilet, gut the rabbits, skin them, have a fag outside and bag them up then take them down to the end user without washing your hands and you are covered under "the hunters exemption". However, if you sell small amounts to a merchant, you must have food prep areas, handling training etc as they are acting as a middle man and this removes your cover under the exemption.

 

If you are doing large quantities (again, not defined) you must go down the route of food prep areas etc.

 

I thought it was odd that even thought the rabbit ends up being eaten by someone either way, the small producer who is likely to be less strict on hygiene etc as they wouldn't be making a living from it has no restrictions, whereas, the large producer, who in theory would be careful with hygiene etc to protect their income has to jump through hoops. So if your pub gets their rabbits from a merchant, they should be produced in an approved facility, if they buy them from a local there are no restrictions on how they are processed. The punters get rabbit pie either way.

 

Edited to say- when I asked environmental health what a small quantity was, they didn't know and said "well how many are you wanting to do?" I said not many, maybe a few hundred a week and they thought that was a hell of a lot, they thought one bloke might kill and sell 2 or 3 rabbits a week so they definition of a small amount is really a grey area.

Thanks for that Murph, Very interesting!"

[Guest allroundhunter]

The way things are going with this creadit crunch I think we will see a lot more people out with there guns and ferrets hunting for there meat them selves and fair play to them Making hunting even more in the focal point.

[will.f11 24]

i just sell to the butcher occaisionally. havent for a while as the local old biddies take em at 3 pound a peice, gutted and skinned