Interview: Oliver Shute, chef and food entrepreneur

WALT Disney has a lot to answer for, says Oliver Shute. The chef and food entrepreneur holds the cartoon king accountable for the public's loss of appetite for the abundant free-range game that gambols and springs across our meadows and glens and aims to get it back on our dinner tables as fast as he can. We could probably line up Douglas Adams and Beatrix Potter in our sights too, when it comes to dropping Peter and Thumper from the menu.

“Rabbit only stopped being eaten in the UK after the Second World War. It had sustained the population throughout, but it became associated with poor times and rationing. We want to get people eating it again," says the 32-year-old.

Teaming up with fellow chef and friend David Holliday to become David Oliver Fine Foods, the pair set to producing a range of restaurant-standard ready meals focusing on wild game that is now sold in Waitrose and delis. With a choice of guinea fowl and lentils, rabbit and flageolet beans and classic venison stew, theirs are the only game-based ready meals on the market, and are about to be joined on the shelves by a range of ragus that include venison, red wine and juniper, and rabbit, cider and sage.

“It was amazing when Waitrose said they wanted our meals. They are the most expensive ready meal they sell but shift at a rate of 5,000 a week. Even though we're in a recession, people still want restaurant-style food, plus it's a cheap dinner party,” says Shute.

David Oliver Fine Foods was born out of frustration as both Shute and Holliday are keen outdoor enthusiasts with gourmet tastes, having met in the kitchen of the Pot Kiln in Yattendon, Berkshire, where Holliday was head chef (before going on to run the first ever pub in London to be awarded a coveted Michelin Star – the Harwood Arms in Fulham). Shute now runs his own outside catering company, the Pot Kiln Anywhere in West Berkshire, but also co-owns the Game and Wild Food Cookery School which specialises in traditional country food from the field to the table. His country life is now complete “with a wife in tweed”, a one-year-old daughter and “a sufficiently enthusiastic black lab joining him on shoot days”, he says.

“I'm not a complete eccentric but there is an aspect of country life that was simpler than things are now and I like that."

Shute originally hails from Aberdeen and spent his childhood in Scotland, earning his culinary stripes in the kitchen from the age of 12. He turned professional ten years ago and worked in shooting lodges across Scotland, including the Tennants’ Glen Estate near Peebles, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Scottish foodie and gunslinger Clarissa Dickson Wright and Scottish foodie and insultslinger Gordon Ramsay.

“I learned a lot from Clarissa about hot, hearty country food, which is the kind of food I grew up eating. And Gordon Ramsay taught me how to do fois gras ballotine for 750 people, which I’ll never forget." This baptism of fire turned out to be good practice for cooking in bulk when Shute and Holliday started catering for events.

“We were making restaurant-quality meals for them and thought, ‘Why can't the general public have this?’ So it grew from there.”

Consistency is a challenge as wild animals vary in taste, with red deer tasting iron-y when they’re in rut because of the testosterone, while salmon has a rest season. “When you're making it for a supermarket, you can't say it's not in season, so we have to source some of it from abroad. Our next plan is to do seasonal products such as limited editions for the shooting season, as we want people to eat all this game that’s shot."

Game might be plentiful but time is in short supply for Shute. But he still manages to head back to Scotland as often as he can. “There’s nothing like it. Fishing, shooting, being outdoors, I love it.”

And we can be sure that none of the pheasant, partridge, pigeons and grouse he bags go to waste. n

• David Oliver ready meals, £5.99, Waitrose (www.waitrose.com) and www.davidoliverfoods.co.uk