Goolmangar’s Jonas Widjaja has started up a new enterprise, Fair Game, taking venison from pest deer that has been professionally culled and putting it in the kitchens of high end restaurants and Northern Rivers homes. It’s a brilliant business idea but for Jonas the social, environmental and ethical benefits are just as important.

My business Fair Game is all about using meat that would otherwise be wasted. The deer are being shot regardless - because they are a massive pest to farmers, damage the environment, and a threat to public safety - but they're not all being picked up to use. They should be used. For me, preventing that waste is very important but it’s also about supporting the farmers and reducing the pressure on the environment.

Feral deer are a big problem for NSW farmers. PHOTO: Supplied/NSW Farmers.

There are a lot of farmers out west, where the deer populations are the largest, who are already struggling with drought. In order to keep their cattle alive and fed, they have to control the numbers of deer that are breaking into their properties and eating their pasture.

The government does culls as well, and a lot of that is based around minimising the environmental damage that the deer do. They are an invasive hoofed animal and they eat vegetation right down to the base which doesn't really allow the vegetation to grow back and they rub the bark off tree trunks, which is basically like ring barking the trees as well.

More recently there's been quite a lot of concern about public safety as the deer move closer to the coast and cause traffic accidents. They're probably Australia's fastest growing pest animal and they're very difficult to control.

My day job is I'm a primary school teacher, and a landscape architect but I have also been a recreational hunter for a few years. I was a bit older when I started hunting. I realized that as a city kid I had absolutely no connection to the food that I was eating. I would see lamb being really cute, and eat lamb shanks, and not put any real connection between the two. I think that's a really common thing for a lot of people who buy packaged cuts at the supermarkets. We can't even really tell what the cut of meat is or where it comes from on the animal.

I decided that I'd start hunting and started getting really interested what a family friend was doing at their game meat restaurant in Auckland, Cazador. I started hunting with them and they kind of shaped my current values.

Dariush Lolaiy is a top chef in New Zealand and a game meat specialist. PHOTO: Supplied.

Dariush Lolaiy runs Cazador these days. He's my age and the second generation to run the restaurant. I really, really respect what he's doing. The family has always been nose to tail eaters and they always made things out of the hides. They fish and only take what they can eat.

A big part of the tourism industry in New Zealand is game hunting. Rich Americans will come and shoot deer and then they'll go home but a lot of that meat isn't taken back. My friends would use whatever meat they could in the restaurant and then donate the rest.

That's kind of where the whole idea of Fair Game started. I originally wanted to start up a non-profit which would help people who had excess meat, through hunting and the tourism industry in New Zealand, find avenues to donate that meat.

Partway through that idea I realized that I'd probably be able to do more if I was a successful business owner rather than a non-profit. Also, when I moved here to Australia the whole idea changed a little bit as well because the problem is much larger in Australia in terms of the numbers of deer that are shot and left on the ground and because of the agricultural and environmental issues. So I was thinking more about how I could support those two avenues as well as try and get this meat onto plates.

My internal drive is definitely more of a social drive. I do want what I do to help people struggling with food security, and I've started these discussions with quite a few people and I'm getting there with what it might look like.

At the moment, the important thing for me is to really get people to understand that venison is out there and is largely left on the ground and is an extremely highly nutritious and very healthy, lean red meat. It’s a really high quality product. I've got some of the top chefs using it and really loving it.

Fair Game sells a wide variety of cuts of venison. PHOTO: Supplied.

Like any other meat, each cut needs to be treated differently. Low and slow for your shanks, shoulder and neck and then your fast cuts come off the back strap and tenderloin. You can just sear it on the outside and then put it in the oven for very short time, four or five minutes, and you get that really nice blushing on the inside. You really don't want to cook it more than medium rare.

What people don't necessarily know is that the leg cuts, which they call the denver legs, that's the top side knuckle, silver and rump, they're all fast cuts as well and because I age the mate, you actually have a product that you can use like you would a back strap, and get a fairly similar quality and tenderness and flavor.

Fair Game also does other meat products such as sausages. PHOTO: Supplied.

I've been in business for three or four months now. I'm probably doing around about eight to 12 deer per week and I'm keen to grow.

At the moment there are a few local shops that supply it. The Bay Grocer in Byron and Suffolk Park Spar and locally in Lismore you can get it at Spar in Wyrallah Rd, the Bexhill Store, Secret Chef Deli, the Goolmangar General Store and the Ethical and Sustainable Produce stall at the markets.

I'm having a launch event coming up at Mavis's Kitchen in Uki on August 25 and I'm bringing over that friend who has really shaped my values, Dariush Lolaiy. He's one of New Zealand's top chefs so he’s going to come and talk about venison and put on an amazing meal for everyone that comes.

The requirements during harvesting are quite strict in terms of food safety and ethical harvesting. It starts off with a contract with a commercially licensed game shooter who has the correct type of vehicle that can be audited for sanitary and hygiene standards. They have to have wash down and hand washing stations and the hunters are required to have a Cert IV in game harvesting. There's also certain requirements that make sure that the meat once it gets to the plate is safe and that includes meat inspection, temperature control, the way that the animal is shot or harvested.

The good thing for me is that whenever a deer comes to me from a commercially licensed shooter, I can see whether it was killed to ethical standards. If it's not shot and killed instantly, there will be damage on the body, which I would be able to see. And at that point I would tell these guys it's against the law for me to take this. That has never happened, which means that these guys are only shooting when they know that they've got an ethical kill which I think is really important.

There are strict ethical and food safety standards that must be adhered to when harvesting wild deer. PHOTO: Supplied.

There's no live transport. There's no stress to the animal, and that actually comes through in the tenderness of the meat as well because the adrenaline that rushes through due to stress does taint the meat. So you get a really high quality products because it's an instant, and stress-free system.

A lot of people disagree with the current meat industry and some practices. Our region is actually really good in terms of regenerative farming. A lot of people are trying to make changes in terms of what they're doing. Even people who have made a decision not to eat meat, when they find out what I'm doing, whether or not they're going to choose to eat the meat that I supply, I often get a really positive response. They say, "I think what you're doing is a really good thing, it's a good change.”

To find out more about Fair Game head to the Fair Game website or Facebook page.