The French Guinea Fowl Committee (Comité Interprofessionnel de la Pintade, CIP) has invested in a campaign to increase sales in the United Kingdom. The campaign focuses on educating chefs through hands-on workshops and the trade publication of the Craft Guild of Chefs, as well as meetings with traders at London’s Smithfield Market, a major meat wholesale market.
Andy Stephenson, head chef and owner of Hallidays Restaurant near Chichester, will be leading the chef workshops. He said the UK game and exotic meat market has increased 45% since 2006, and most guinea fowl is consumed in restaurants.
According to French customs figures, France exported about 992 tonnes of guinea fowl worth €3.1M to the United Kingdom in 2009. CIP said exports of whole-carcass guinea fowl to the United Kingdom increased 77% between 2002 and 2006, and the market research group Mintel predicts the growing popularity of game poultry among Britons.
Mintel put the 2006 UK market for game and exotic meat at £61M in 2006 and predicts it to hit £90M in 2011, a 47% increase.
