Sourcing
The photos you see of our work are all flames, smoke and whole animals on the cross. That is the romantic bit. But there is another side to wild game that nobody photographs, and it is the part I take most seriously of all: keeping it safe to eat.
Wild game is not supermarket meat. It has not passed through an abattoir with an inspector at every step. That freedom is exactly what makes it special, but it also means the responsibility sits squarely with us. Here is how we shoulder it.
Every animal we serve can be traced back to where and when it was taken. As I have written about in why I hunt the meat I cook, a significant amount of our game I take myself, and I hold the DSC1 deer stalking qualification plus the larder hygiene training that goes with it. The rest comes from a small circle of trusted estates and suppliers I know personally.
What we will not do is take random meat with no history. If someone offers us a deer they "shot themselves" with no paperwork and no idea how it was handled, the answer is no. Not because we are precious, but because traceability is the whole foundation of food safety.
If I cannot tell you where an animal came from and how it was handled, it has no place on your guests' plates. No exceptions.
- Cai
Once an animal is taken, the clock starts. It needs to be handled in a clean larder, chilled quickly, and kept cold all the way to the event. Game that is processed through a licensed facility with proper documentation is game I can stand behind. This is why our quotes for far-flung events often include a chiller trailer or refrigeration - it is not an upsell, it is the cold chain that keeps your food safe when we are miles from base.
That unbroken chain from field to fire is the single most important thing we manage on every job, and most guests never know it is happening.
A field is not a kitchen, but it has to behave like one. We bring hand-washing, separate clean and raw preparation areas, temperature probes, and strict separation between raw game and anything ready to eat. The fire itself is a powerful ally here - cooked properly, to the right core temperature, fire deals with the things that matter.
We also handle allergens with the same discipline. As I covered in our piece on feeding every guest, dietary and allergen plates are prepped on clean, separate boards to avoid any cross-contamination.
Ethically sourced, fully traceable, handled with care from field to fire. That is the Game and Flames promise.
Talk to UsWhen you hire a caterer, you are trusting them with your guests' health. With wild game that trust matters even more, because the safeguards are not handed to us by a supermarket - we build them ourselves, every single time. If you want to understand the full journey, our piece on how we source our wild game walks through it from the start.
The fire and the theatre are what people remember. The traceability and the cold chain are what let them remember it fondly, with no nasty surprises. Both matter. We just only post photos of one of them.
- Cai
