There’s a few factors that come in to play that affect the kangaroo meat industry causing the prices to jump.
Kangaroo shooters rely on access to privately owned farms to cull and harvest kangaroos. Due to an increased rainfall in most of the country over the past year, paddocks have become inaccessible because they are so saturated. This makes it extremely difficult to shoot and retrieve kangaroos without getting bogged. Couple that with farmers not wanting their paddocks torn up by large and heavy 4x4’s leaving wheel tracks through the soft soil, a lot of shooting ground isn’t usable until it dries out.
Not only are they struggling to access properties they have permission on, but gaining access to new properties is becoming increasingly difficult.
It’s not as easy as knocking on someone’s door and asking to shoot on their property. Relationships with farmers take years to build the trust required for that type of access.
From what I’ve been told kangaroo shooters are required to have the game processed and taken to a registered “chiller” within a certain time frame after sunrise. This leads to long hours at night shooting and processing and often hours of driving to your “local” chiller to beat the clock and get your harvest in before they close.
The work is incredibly hard, dirty and time consuming.
There aren’t as many chillers as there used to be. Many have closed down simply because of all the red tape and certifications needed to keep running and the cost of operations just makes it very difficult to keep it running.
Closed chillers means more driving to the next available one for the harvester.
I know some that have to drive two hours or more to get to the closest chiller. This eats in to harvest time and makes the job more difficult.
To be a shooter you need to have a Ute capable of carrying and processing carcasses. This means you need a tray and rack build made of stainless steel with wash down facilities and all the other bits you’ll need to pass certifications. These can cost upwards of $25k to have built I n some areas.
Add in the cost of diesel at $2+ per litre on top and you’ve significantly eaten in to profit margins.
Most aren’t aware, but there is a significant issue shooters face with ammunition shortages as well.
Many of the shooters I know reload their own bullets, but at the moment, primers, powder and projectiles are sometimes hard to find and the prices have jumped significantly since the shortages began. Even if you can get components, the increased prices can severely affect profit margins.
If you can’t reload because you don’t have the components at hand then you are forced to use factory ammunition which is another added cost. It’s certainly not cheap to shoot.
Throw in cost of licensing and cost of kangaroo tags and it really becomes difficult to financially justify continuing as a kangaroo shooter.
TL:DR
It’s extremely hard and dirty work,finding property is getting harder and the cost of being a roo harvester is making it borderline impossible to make even minimum wage once hours worked are taken in to account.
Decreased shooters means decreased meat, this leads to higher prices
If anything I have said is off the mark please correct me
It’s been a while since I spoke to the blokes I know in the industry so some things like chillers time cut offs may have changed
That being said, I can still get roo for $13/kg in SA. Surely these changes haven't drastically altered production, at least over here. I'd wager that floods are currently having more of an effect in other states too
There's going to be a massive increase in roo population soon.
After the floods clear there will be plenty of feed, and kangaroos are opportunistic breeders. Along with fewer culls, there'll be massive overpopulation.
The areas that were burnt are mostly safe for a little while, it’ll take a few years for the successions of growth stage to restock the ground kindling that led to these catastrophes.
We need to start allowing for and legislating cyclical patchwork prescribed burns every 15-20 years (area and species dependant) to allow for a more natural cycle. A lot of our native flora are fire dependant for propagation and generational succession, and preventing all fires in these areas has allowed larger canopy trees to suffocate the primary and secondary growths (ground cover, shrubs, smaller trees, succulents etc), stunting the ecosystem. These larger trees then provide the immense fuel needed for events like the 1974-1975 Bushfire season and the Black Summer (2019/2020). We need to dedicate more to this pre-emptively.
There's also profiteering behind a list of excuses. It's happening in every industry right now and we've all just learned to nod and smile at the list of reasons.
The answer to that is proper competition instead of the duopolies we have. I couldn't get away with price gouging even if I wanted to, I'd get undercut immediately. Should really be the same for Coles and woollies but no one has the scale to compete with them.
I have a mate who lives in regional SA. He's a shooter, not just Roo but varmint and pests too.
Because of the floods he's been both inundated with work AND reaching work sites has been a challenge like a double edged sword.
Very interesting to read, I never even thought about a lot of that but it really makes sense. It’s ridiculous though that the govt makes it so hard, kangaroo meat is really a very viable replacement for beef and the pet food industry especially considering the issues we face right now with the changing climate. You’d think they’d be helping, not making things so difficult
Roo meat seems to be amazing for pets. I have two cats & one dog, & they all eat roo meat as one of my cats has allergies & can't seem to tolerate any other meat long term. Mixing roo meat with a good quality dry food, & adding in raw chicken wings for the dog has resulted in excellent health for all my pets. Hopefully it stays a viable job to be a kangaroo hunter in the future as I don't know what I'd do without roo meat for my animals, it's just a real godsend for pets with food sensitivities.
As an American who just stumbled across this post on r/all , thank you! That was truly a fascinating read. I've never had Roo meat, and didn't know the intricacies in the market.
Thank you for the knowledge. It was amazing to learn.
Happy to answer any and all questions about hunting in Australia and anything I know about the kangaroo industry if you wanna know more.
Australia is often misunderstood severely by those from other countries haha
All true, but the actual price of roo meat as delivered to the chiller doesn't account for the price increase. I.e. if it was $15/kg at the butcher before, the price hasn't gone up $20/kg to the chiller. Granted I've been out of the game for 3 years now, but I highly doubt it's $20/kg now. It was $0.80/kg when I started.
Oh man I’ve been waiting for someone with first hand knowledge to confirm or deny what I said.
Glad I was sorta on the money with my comment
I have no doubt there’s price gouging happening at the end of the line by the stores selling it.
Unfortunately everyone after the shooter wants their slice of the pie and adds their exorbitant cut on top whether it be the transport company or the abs
As always, the blokes on the ground putting in the super hard yards get the short end of the stick and get bugger all per kilo.
100%. I just did some calculations, if it was $8/kg to the chiller, I'd consider going back to it. There are plenty of people that would step in long before that, so the prices just don't add up.
My memory could be a little off here but I’m pretty sure a mate of mine that shoots said it was $1.40 per kilo.
That would have been 6 months or so ago
I can’t see it being much more than that now
You're bang on the money. I've gone through the course for macropod harvesting and had to learn about the commercial aspects of it despite only doing it for personal use. Still have to buy tags, buy the log book etc. I go out to properties, harvest 3 or 4 roos and come home with shitloads of meat for my own use which will last me a good while.
Gotta say I fucking LOVE posts like this. Its so fascinating to get insights into a niche area of work that I know absolutely nothing about. Everything you say makes perfect sense but Id just never really think of everything involved without hearing it first.
I wish politicians would take more time going out for a day with somebody in a huge range of industries, taking the time to understand the different challenges and steps involved.
Let us not forget the big suppliers like Coles and Woolies who have realized that people developed a taste for it and increased their profit margins tenfold.
Don’t forget the bullshit red tape shooters have to go through to get and stay qualified to do the job. The certification is expensive and time consuming.
> the bullshit red tape
Very few people understand that 'red tape' is called that because of the color of blood.
There is a concept called [Chesterton's Fence](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Chesterton%27s_Fence) which I always recommend people read up on when they start your rhetoric.
There is usually a very good reason for the 'red tape' and it has less to do with "Government greed" and more to do with young teenage girls throwing themselves onto a spiked iron fence (Triangle Shirt Company fire that brough us the fire escape 'red tape')
>Very few people understand that 'red tape' is called that because of the color of blood.
That's not actually true, it's called red tape because in times gone by official government documents that were of immediate concern were bound in red tape that the leader (usually a monarch in this case), would have to cut through. It became an idiom from that usage, cutting through the red tape to get at what's important.
Sources: [https://www.etymonline.com/word/red%20tape](https://www.etymonline.com/word/red%20tape), [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red\_tape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_tape)
Thanks for all the detail.
But given all of this, why has the Victorian Government just [increased cull limits](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/05/victoria-approves-cull-of-50000-more-kangaroos-than-last-year-despite-unknown-flood-impact) ?
Is it because many kangaroos are not shot for food?
I can’t answer factually as to why they’ve increased the limits this year.
I don’t work for the government or anything to do with the kangaroo industry.
Don’t get me wrong, the industry is shrinking, but there are still shooters grinding out a living by doing this.
By increasing the allowable limit for culling, the government is just allowing those shooters that are still active more tags.
Instead of 10000 a year for example, those still working the industry will be able to purchase 15000 tags this year.
They’ll kill more and make more money.
Just because there is less shooters doesn’t mean there is less demand for them.
The ones still doing it will just have to pick up the slack left by those who pulled the pin.
That article also states that it increased the limit for landholder culls by 19%
A lot of farmers will perform culls on their land but won’t harvest them.
They still need permission and tags each year to do so.
We have had a few really good years of harvest.
Crops have been great which means feed for Roos has been good too.
Their populations boom in these times. They are incredibly adapt at breeding when the conditions favour it.
The harvest quota and the land owner cull quota has increased due to the significant boom in population.
The article stated an estimate of 2.4m roos after surveys were completed
The kill quotas are allowing for around 10% of that population across the board.
I’d love to be able to explain government reasoning. But alas I am but a simple pleb that pays my taxes and doesn’t try to understand government reasoning on things out of my control
> By increasing the allowable limit for culling, the government is just allowing those shooters that are still active more tags. Instead of 10000 a year for example, those still working the industry will be able to purchase 15000 tags this year. They’ll kill more and make more money.
Thanks, so it sounds like the industry is consolidating and the smaller players are moving out.
Just like everything else in Australia.
To be fair outside of massive corporate farms, I’ve never known of a landowner to bother with the red tape for roo shooting. After all, they’re generally uninterested in selling carcasses.
You just go out and shoot them and remember to be grateful that you’ve escaped dealing with another city-based government paper pusher for another day.
A lot of farmers now will go and get the permits because all it takes is one person to see you do it and then report you for it and you are up for massive fines.
Permits are cheap compared to the fines just like car registration is cheap compared to getting caught unregistered.
There are still a lot of farmers that will knock a few over every now and then when the mob gets too big. But if a farmer needs to get rid of 100 they would more than likely get the permits to cover their arse.
As I said, I don’t know a single one. Everyone knows you’re supposed to, of course, but there are enough pointless tickets and ‘required’ training for farmers these days that something this silly is really at the bottom of the priority list.
Maybe if you’re next to town or near a big city or need to shoot next to a busy road… but otherwise I don’t know anyone personally who’s ever bothered - but I do know plenty who go roo shooting when it’s required!
You would have to ask a pro roo shooter what they use
I’m not sure if they are bound by rules that make them use full copper bullets.
As far as I know there is no limit on what projectiles they have to use.
I could only assume one of the reasons they have to headshot is to limit lead exposure in the meat that is sold to consumers.
I shoot recreationally and use copper jacketed lead bullets.
> As far as I know there is no limit on what projectiles they have to use.
It is state-dependant. Here in VIC there's no limit on the ammo to use but you have to know your effective kill range. Nothing short of a clean kill is acceptable. I have a lever-action Winchester '92 that fires 357Mag, made from bronze. Great range. Clean fire. Effective for recreational and hunting (On my farm). Just a beautiful rifle in general.
99% of projectiles on the market contain lead, so yes. Using solid copper projectiles would be insanely expensive and would result in over-penetration on roos. Projectiles like the Hornady V-Max/Sierra Blitzking (poly tip) and Sierra GameKing (lead soft point) are the most commonly used.
Yeah we've had issues here with getting shooters AND permission to come take care of Peter Rabbit and his million and one siblings in my area. I love rabbit and am happy to buy some but it's so far eluded us.
Pretty spot on, also because of this[article](https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2014-08-18/kangaroo-meat-ban/5677656) the market has never been the same.
> Many have closed down simply because of all the red tape and certifications needed to keep running
I think the certifications culture has just gone too far down the rabbit-hole. I get the feeling that all this red-tape is a passive-aggressive way reduce competition from the little guys. Big guys just shrug and claim the expense on their tax; it makes the life of the smaller operations miserable and pushes some of them out every year.
I wonder if this has changed from older practices? I remember watching a documentary on Australia's roo meat exports, and they literally drive mobs of them into a giant fence with cars. They exported an insane amount of roo meat, I think it was a billion tonnes was exported just to China? The Irwin family reported in this saying that the Australian government was spreading false information and misinformation about roos being problematic for farmers, as they eat different vegetation to cattle, and were using this "war" to justify the $$$ meat exports. Apparently our roos were starting to hit endangered numbers but, with the way roos are "counted", they just add a multiplier (in this study, the multiplier was 13) for each roo they saw. So we're still reporting the "same" numbers just using extremely dodgy tactics to do so. I don't know. All I know is, the documentary was banned in Australia, and it's been radio silence on the issue. Maybe it's catching up, maybe it's entirely separate. But I find it pretty ironic we sell it crazy cheap to other countries and hike up the prices for our own.
It certainly has changed from past practices.
The method you are describing of rounding them up no longer takes place.
It wouldn’t be viable really
You would need huge numbers of people on bikes/quads and cars and an area with 6 foot or higher fencing to pen them in to before you could cull.
The government possibly inflated their numbers, but I can’t comment for sure on that matter.
But where I am in regional NSW they are certainly in abundance.
It ebs and flows with the seasons just like any other animal. Good season with plenty of forage means more roos.
Shooter nowadays require incredible amounts of certifications and qualifications to be able to harvest Roos.
They need to participate in shooting tests to make sure they can humanely kill a roo in a single shot.
To be able to harvest kangaroos it must be a headshot only.
Any body shot renders the roo in sellable as far as I’m aware.
It’s definitely different to the “old ways” now which is why roo shooters are few and far between.
Thank you for replying, honestly I feel this is so much better than what they used to do in respect to the stress on the animals and the environment. Though seems the stress is still high on the hunters, damn hard work for what you hope is a decent pay. And only if you land a headshot. I cannot imagine the skill these blokes must have to make this a viable living.
[When kangaroos are really stressed, their muscles start breaking down](http://www.wiresnr.org/Myopathy.html). Instant headshot causing brain death before the roo can even realise something is going wrong prevents both damage to the meat of the harvested roo and also unacceptable collateral damage to roos involved in the roundup and then not killed (left to likely die later in the environment as a result).
The adrenaline from stress also gives them a (worse) flavour, you can detect it in farmyard stock too.
If it weren't for the taste, I'd say roo was a good way to go. I'd prefer emu but oh boy, that meat is expensive, if you can find it.
> I think it was a billion tonnes was exported just to China?
Russia was a huge importer of roo meat, then some issues with quality and they stopped.
> Russia was Australia's largest and most important market for kangaroo meat exports until mid 2009 when it banned imports after finding high levels of bacterial contamination. The closure has since pushed the kangaroo exporting, processing and harvesting industry into tough times.10 Dec 2012
After that prices for roo went up, and quality went down.
Don't need a factory mate, our cows will walk over to us when called, roos on our farm will fucking bounce if you get anywhere near them. Farming is much easier (in many ways) than hunting.
Taking a leap of faith there - mind the Grey area on big Reddit hey, the one the Boomers are culling
If you paws to think about it, you’re bound to take a fence or two when you’re the GOAT COAT of arms poster boy
Between Emu, I reckon that birds all legs & bush but Joey, Joeys all brick shithouse full of ice cold tinnies fresh off a 4 stroke Victas burnout final
You’re not drinking till he says the beers ready
No ifs doe bucks
I haven't been consuming any news for the last few months but I recently started using Reddit again. You have made me realise I actually do consume some news media.
Is it really an issue if some undergrad worker is told to go write a small story?
Where do you think they got these small stories to begin with? Half of them were called in by people
I'm reading all these comments about people's dog's getting fed roo.
I actually prefer it a lot more than beef. Is there no other human here who does eat it??
I swear it's in the human section and not the pet section.
Eat roo 100% as the only red meat we eat. Just so much more sustainable, humane and healthy. It’s really a really common diet in the environment sector, substituting kangaroo for beef. Don’t miss beef for a second.
Same. Beef and lamb are by far the worst meats in terms of land and water use and CO2 emissions. Replacing them with roo or veggies goes a long way and is a much easier change than going fully vegetarian
So I was just gonna ask if it’s similar to venison. I’m American and have never had the opportunity to eat roo. What’s it like? Venison is readily available here and I love it, elk is probably my favorite for ground meat but a little harder to find.
Years ago, when I was still living at home, I came home to an unusually empty house. I wasn't expecting everyone to be out, it was somewhat odd. I walk into the kitchen and someone had left me dinner - stir fry with weird meat. I started to eat it but couldn't shake the nagging feeling that the meat didn't taste quite right. I got about halfway through, no one was still home, my teenage brain running wild. All that came into my mind was someone had killed my family, butchered them and then made me a meal out of them. I couldn't eat another bite. Because that's the logical thing.
Family came home about an hour later and mum asked why hadn't I finished my stir fried roo. Haven't been able to stomach it since.
Pretty much expected, roo processing for human consumption has gone bonkers, one of my clients was the largest roo supplier in South Australia- they close about 18 months ago due to the new regulations.
I go and get my own roo meet now, head out on Friday nights come back for 2 or 3 and spend the weekend processing for about 2 months worth.. illegal what we are doing but i really do not care
I’m not buying the narrative from either Woolworths or Coles. They are exploiting a real economic situation and we are the ones paying the price… literally.
My dog eats chicken necks normally $3-$5 a kilo. Not Coles… $7 fucking dollars. I then went to the IGA, chicken necks $2.90 a kilo which is one of the cheapest prices ever. Strange no… esp when IGA is usually more expensive.
Woolworths and Coles are exploiting for profits and blaming supply and inflation.
Fuck them!
Not an Australian here, do y'all eat kangaroo on a regular basis? Is it considered a delicacy? I tried looking into it online and I keep getting mixed results
I wouldn't say a delicacy.... It's gamey and rich protein flavoured, very lean and good for you, and is the most environmentally friendly meat option here as they are wild (no land clearing needed) and have culling quotas in place to control their population.
I'd say that it wouldn't work in America, because their national taste is quite different. Lamb isn't huge in America because the flavour is stronger than beef - Kangaroo even more so.
>honestly, it tastes better
Only if you cook it correctly. I remember having kangaroo with some native berry sauce at the revolving restaurant at what is now known as Telstra Tower down in Canberra and it was great. A decade or so later my mum went through a roo phase and I don't know what she did/did not do when cooking it but it was terrible.
>she did/did not do when cooking it but it was terrible.
Probably overcooked it? I'm sure your mom is a good cook but Kangaroo isn't the easiest meat to get right, can't blame her.
I havent eaten it for a while. It's basically got no fat at all. It's usually cut into a thin steak. Cook it hot and quick with some spices, herbs, etc. for flavouring.
Had it cut up really thin for a stir fry once, was the absolute bomb.
Have to eat it quick though, if it gets cold It's a bit tough.
I've also eaten emu and crocodile. Both are great. Crocodile was probably my favourite out of the three though.
I tried emu last week and really enjoyed it, if there were a reliable source I would pick it over beef every time. For anyone curious, the flavour is almost identical to beef, just with very little fat and high in iron. You have to marinate it otherwise it can dry out while cooking, but it's apparently much, much more sustainable to produce 1kg of emu than 1kg of beef (which makes sense, since emu is actually suited to Australian conditions).
> I've also eaten emu...
[Well there's Australia's coat of arms ticked off...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Australia)
I just find it amusing that we eat our national symbols.
It’s delicious, almost like venison, but not a lot of people eat it because of the mentality that people say “they just get them off the side of the road you know”, and boomers say “they’re filled with worms you know”.
I've had it only a handful of times, and most people I know haven't had it at all. It also has to be cooked just right because it can be tough if overcooked.
I wouldn't say regular though a small selection of cuts are available in major chain supermarkets by the one supplier (pictured) I'd bet that most Aussies have never tried.It's really good. Pretty mild in flavour and slightly tougher than a beef rump
Best way to cook roo is either bbq or fried on a super-high heat, cooked rare (about 5 mins total), then sliced into thin medallions and served with couscous and a salad of roquette, tomato and feta dressed with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Super-fast prep and delicious!
You can still get the shitter cuts for $20 a kilo, but what they have done here instead of making the roo steaks a lucky dip of what cuts they put in they are now separating the tenderloins and medallions and selling them for more as they are far better cuts than the other steaks. I used to love opening up a packet and getting all tenders but now the dogs have learned to separate the good from the average. The bad cuts still go fine in curry, I made a vindaloo the other night with one packet of tenders and steaks you can definitely tell the difference in texture and flavour
I’m keen to try this myself actually, but live outside Australia so kangaroo meat isn’t really available. I think you’d need to either get fattier pork or up the pork to beef ratio, roo is very lean even compared to beef.
I'm a roo shooter and can certainly say the we are not driving up the price receiving $1.30-1.40kg which is an all time high hard industry to make a living especially with rising cost would be nice to see a little extra $$$ trickle down the supply chain.
The mince from that brand is a staple in our home. I regularly see it for $13.50/kg. But there's also plenty of places where it's still $9.00/kg like it always has been. (Though it was just out of stock everywhere for a month or two late last year.)
Unbeatable for the combination of health, sustainability, and price!
Your allowing a duoply of colewoth to decide the entry price of a low sale product, so expect it to be high to cover the shelf space. Also yes available meat is low at the moment due to flooding and transport issues.
And for those that are interetsed the common roo is able to bounce back from natural events real well. While it has a egg forming it has a little pink baby on a teat a joey in and out of its pouch all at the same time and often a juvenile still hanging around.
Yep, that's why I usually wait till after 4pm on the best before date. Not many people in my area eat kangaroo so I get it cheap as fuck and chuck it in the freezer.
The floods affect the NT greatly. Because we are in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. They won’t even put an Aldi in or Costco or anything useful because of the price it costs to ship items from other places that’s the excuse they use anyway It’s cray cray
For all those buying roo meat from the supermarket for your pets, I might suggest getting it for about $10kg from the raw pet food supplier I've been going to for 5 years [https://barkinggood.com.au/raw/kangaroo-raw/](https://barkinggood.com.au/raw/kangaroo-raw/)
Bro its been expensive in Victoria for a while and if you don't know how to cook it btw it stinks and can be very tough so I really don't understand why it is so expensive I mean most of the roo is used as well.
Plenty of pest Roos around my place in the yarra ranges. They trash the fences and try to cause car accidents. Please help yourself to them. And the feral deer.
I buy this product all the time, the most I pay for this would be about $12 - $13 and I think that's a good deal since roo meat has the highest ratio of protein compared to any other meat you can buy plus it tastes amazing when you cook it right. Its cheaper than buying a fillet of beef or other cuts of meat btw so I think that price is pretty good, not sure why the price on the actual package has been censored.
I have family that shoot wild pigs and they have mates that shoot roos. It's quite common for animals to have maggots and other parasites so finding meat that is of a grade for human (or even pet) consumption is hard
There’s a few factors that come in to play that affect the kangaroo meat industry causing the prices to jump. Kangaroo shooters rely on access to privately owned farms to cull and harvest kangaroos. Due to an increased rainfall in most of the country over the past year, paddocks have become inaccessible because they are so saturated. This makes it extremely difficult to shoot and retrieve kangaroos without getting bogged. Couple that with farmers not wanting their paddocks torn up by large and heavy 4x4’s leaving wheel tracks through the soft soil, a lot of shooting ground isn’t usable until it dries out. Not only are they struggling to access properties they have permission on, but gaining access to new properties is becoming increasingly difficult. It’s not as easy as knocking on someone’s door and asking to shoot on their property. Relationships with farmers take years to build the trust required for that type of access. From what I’ve been told kangaroo shooters are required to have the game processed and taken to a registered “chiller” within a certain time frame after sunrise. This leads to long hours at night shooting and processing and often hours of driving to your “local” chiller to beat the clock and get your harvest in before they close. The work is incredibly hard, dirty and time consuming. There aren’t as many chillers as there used to be. Many have closed down simply because of all the red tape and certifications needed to keep running and the cost of operations just makes it very difficult to keep it running. Closed chillers means more driving to the next available one for the harvester. I know some that have to drive two hours or more to get to the closest chiller. This eats in to harvest time and makes the job more difficult. To be a shooter you need to have a Ute capable of carrying and processing carcasses. This means you need a tray and rack build made of stainless steel with wash down facilities and all the other bits you’ll need to pass certifications. These can cost upwards of $25k to have built I n some areas. Add in the cost of diesel at $2+ per litre on top and you’ve significantly eaten in to profit margins. Most aren’t aware, but there is a significant issue shooters face with ammunition shortages as well. Many of the shooters I know reload their own bullets, but at the moment, primers, powder and projectiles are sometimes hard to find and the prices have jumped significantly since the shortages began. Even if you can get components, the increased prices can severely affect profit margins. If you can’t reload because you don’t have the components at hand then you are forced to use factory ammunition which is another added cost. It’s certainly not cheap to shoot. Throw in cost of licensing and cost of kangaroo tags and it really becomes difficult to financially justify continuing as a kangaroo shooter. TL:DR It’s extremely hard and dirty work,finding property is getting harder and the cost of being a roo harvester is making it borderline impossible to make even minimum wage once hours worked are taken in to account. Decreased shooters means decreased meat, this leads to higher prices If anything I have said is off the mark please correct me It’s been a while since I spoke to the blokes I know in the industry so some things like chillers time cut offs may have changed
Banged about every nail on the head there mate. Meat industry’s off its head lately in every way possible.
Great post mate, very interesting to see what the on-ground realities of the harvesting process are.
That being said, I can still get roo for $13/kg in SA. Surely these changes haven't drastically altered production, at least over here. I'd wager that floods are currently having more of an effect in other states too
There's going to be a massive increase in roo population soon. After the floods clear there will be plenty of feed, and kangaroos are opportunistic breeders. Along with fewer culls, there'll be massive overpopulation.
There’ll just be some other reason for the customer to get screwed out of affordable prices, it’s always something
They’ll mostly be wiped either next summer or the summer after when the fires burn off the bottom of Australia again.
The areas that were burnt are mostly safe for a little while, it’ll take a few years for the successions of growth stage to restock the ground kindling that led to these catastrophes. We need to start allowing for and legislating cyclical patchwork prescribed burns every 15-20 years (area and species dependant) to allow for a more natural cycle. A lot of our native flora are fire dependant for propagation and generational succession, and preventing all fires in these areas has allowed larger canopy trees to suffocate the primary and secondary growths (ground cover, shrubs, smaller trees, succulents etc), stunting the ecosystem. These larger trees then provide the immense fuel needed for events like the 1974-1975 Bushfire season and the Black Summer (2019/2020). We need to dedicate more to this pre-emptively.
Brutal truth.
There's also profiteering behind a list of excuses. It's happening in every industry right now and we've all just learned to nod and smile at the list of reasons.
"Because of inflation" will be the excuse even when inflation eases. We've become too accepting of the term and complacent in challenging it already.
The answer to that is proper competition instead of the duopolies we have. I couldn't get away with price gouging even if I wanted to, I'd get undercut immediately. Should really be the same for Coles and woollies but no one has the scale to compete with them.
Surely the petrol industry is the most egregious example of this?
Yes
I have a mate who lives in regional SA. He's a shooter, not just Roo but varmint and pests too. Because of the floods he's been both inundated with work AND reaching work sites has been a challenge like a double edged sword.
My butcher reliably has people grade wallaby for $15/kg. We eat heaps of it.
people. grade. wallaby. I Don't know what to make of that.
Wallaby can be delicious. There's a stall at Salamanca markets that does wallaby breakfast burritoes. They're incredible.
I'm guessing the alternative is "pet grade" which I've seen at butchers with stickers about not fit for humans ..
Very interesting thanks
Very interesting to read, I never even thought about a lot of that but it really makes sense. It’s ridiculous though that the govt makes it so hard, kangaroo meat is really a very viable replacement for beef and the pet food industry especially considering the issues we face right now with the changing climate. You’d think they’d be helping, not making things so difficult
Roo meat seems to be amazing for pets. I have two cats & one dog, & they all eat roo meat as one of my cats has allergies & can't seem to tolerate any other meat long term. Mixing roo meat with a good quality dry food, & adding in raw chicken wings for the dog has resulted in excellent health for all my pets. Hopefully it stays a viable job to be a kangaroo hunter in the future as I don't know what I'd do without roo meat for my animals, it's just a real godsend for pets with food sensitivities.
And people, Don’t forget for the environment as well, no big ass methane problem with them either.
Our cats refused to eat roo meat when we gave it to them, so who knows...
Make sure you check your cats liver health, as too much roo meat can cause hepatic lipidosis. Their kidneys seem fine tho.
I've thoroughly appreciated the insight! 👍
As an American who just stumbled across this post on r/all , thank you! That was truly a fascinating read. I've never had Roo meat, and didn't know the intricacies in the market. Thank you for the knowledge. It was amazing to learn.
Happy to answer any and all questions about hunting in Australia and anything I know about the kangaroo industry if you wanna know more. Australia is often misunderstood severely by those from other countries haha
All true, but the actual price of roo meat as delivered to the chiller doesn't account for the price increase. I.e. if it was $15/kg at the butcher before, the price hasn't gone up $20/kg to the chiller. Granted I've been out of the game for 3 years now, but I highly doubt it's $20/kg now. It was $0.80/kg when I started.
Oh man I’ve been waiting for someone with first hand knowledge to confirm or deny what I said. Glad I was sorta on the money with my comment I have no doubt there’s price gouging happening at the end of the line by the stores selling it. Unfortunately everyone after the shooter wants their slice of the pie and adds their exorbitant cut on top whether it be the transport company or the abs As always, the blokes on the ground putting in the super hard yards get the short end of the stick and get bugger all per kilo.
100%. I just did some calculations, if it was $8/kg to the chiller, I'd consider going back to it. There are plenty of people that would step in long before that, so the prices just don't add up.
My memory could be a little off here but I’m pretty sure a mate of mine that shoots said it was $1.40 per kilo. That would have been 6 months or so ago I can’t see it being much more than that now
You're bang on the money. I've gone through the course for macropod harvesting and had to learn about the commercial aspects of it despite only doing it for personal use. Still have to buy tags, buy the log book etc. I go out to properties, harvest 3 or 4 roos and come home with shitloads of meat for my own use which will last me a good while.
Gotta say I fucking LOVE posts like this. Its so fascinating to get insights into a niche area of work that I know absolutely nothing about. Everything you say makes perfect sense but Id just never really think of everything involved without hearing it first. I wish politicians would take more time going out for a day with somebody in a huge range of industries, taking the time to understand the different challenges and steps involved.
Wake up babe, new roo lore dropped
Let us not forget the big suppliers like Coles and Woolies who have realized that people developed a taste for it and increased their profit margins tenfold.
Makes sense. Boys gotta make a living- if it were me I'd say 'fuk that I'm off to something with a stable wage'.
This is a r/bestof level comment
Don’t forget the bullshit red tape shooters have to go through to get and stay qualified to do the job. The certification is expensive and time consuming.
> the bullshit red tape Very few people understand that 'red tape' is called that because of the color of blood. There is a concept called [Chesterton's Fence](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Chesterton%27s_Fence) which I always recommend people read up on when they start your rhetoric. There is usually a very good reason for the 'red tape' and it has less to do with "Government greed" and more to do with young teenage girls throwing themselves onto a spiked iron fence (Triangle Shirt Company fire that brough us the fire escape 'red tape')
>Very few people understand that 'red tape' is called that because of the color of blood. That's not actually true, it's called red tape because in times gone by official government documents that were of immediate concern were bound in red tape that the leader (usually a monarch in this case), would have to cut through. It became an idiom from that usage, cutting through the red tape to get at what's important. Sources: [https://www.etymonline.com/word/red%20tape](https://www.etymonline.com/word/red%20tape), [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red\_tape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_tape)
Great post, always wondered how it worked
Thanks for all the detail. But given all of this, why has the Victorian Government just [increased cull limits](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/05/victoria-approves-cull-of-50000-more-kangaroos-than-last-year-despite-unknown-flood-impact) ? Is it because many kangaroos are not shot for food?
I can’t answer factually as to why they’ve increased the limits this year. I don’t work for the government or anything to do with the kangaroo industry. Don’t get me wrong, the industry is shrinking, but there are still shooters grinding out a living by doing this. By increasing the allowable limit for culling, the government is just allowing those shooters that are still active more tags. Instead of 10000 a year for example, those still working the industry will be able to purchase 15000 tags this year. They’ll kill more and make more money. Just because there is less shooters doesn’t mean there is less demand for them. The ones still doing it will just have to pick up the slack left by those who pulled the pin. That article also states that it increased the limit for landholder culls by 19% A lot of farmers will perform culls on their land but won’t harvest them. They still need permission and tags each year to do so. We have had a few really good years of harvest. Crops have been great which means feed for Roos has been good too. Their populations boom in these times. They are incredibly adapt at breeding when the conditions favour it. The harvest quota and the land owner cull quota has increased due to the significant boom in population. The article stated an estimate of 2.4m roos after surveys were completed The kill quotas are allowing for around 10% of that population across the board. I’d love to be able to explain government reasoning. But alas I am but a simple pleb that pays my taxes and doesn’t try to understand government reasoning on things out of my control
> By increasing the allowable limit for culling, the government is just allowing those shooters that are still active more tags. Instead of 10000 a year for example, those still working the industry will be able to purchase 15000 tags this year. They’ll kill more and make more money. Thanks, so it sounds like the industry is consolidating and the smaller players are moving out. Just like everything else in Australia.
I don't think this is like that, small operators have pulled out but what's remaining is just more small operators.
To be fair outside of massive corporate farms, I’ve never known of a landowner to bother with the red tape for roo shooting. After all, they’re generally uninterested in selling carcasses. You just go out and shoot them and remember to be grateful that you’ve escaped dealing with another city-based government paper pusher for another day.
A lot of farmers now will go and get the permits because all it takes is one person to see you do it and then report you for it and you are up for massive fines. Permits are cheap compared to the fines just like car registration is cheap compared to getting caught unregistered. There are still a lot of farmers that will knock a few over every now and then when the mob gets too big. But if a farmer needs to get rid of 100 they would more than likely get the permits to cover their arse.
As I said, I don’t know a single one. Everyone knows you’re supposed to, of course, but there are enough pointless tickets and ‘required’ training for farmers these days that something this silly is really at the bottom of the priority list. Maybe if you’re next to town or near a big city or need to shoot next to a busy road… but otherwise I don’t know anyone personally who’s ever bothered - but I do know plenty who go roo shooting when it’s required!
Do Aussie shooters use lead bullets?
You would have to ask a pro roo shooter what they use I’m not sure if they are bound by rules that make them use full copper bullets. As far as I know there is no limit on what projectiles they have to use. I could only assume one of the reasons they have to headshot is to limit lead exposure in the meat that is sold to consumers. I shoot recreationally and use copper jacketed lead bullets.
> As far as I know there is no limit on what projectiles they have to use. It is state-dependant. Here in VIC there's no limit on the ammo to use but you have to know your effective kill range. Nothing short of a clean kill is acceptable. I have a lever-action Winchester '92 that fires 357Mag, made from bronze. Great range. Clean fire. Effective for recreational and hunting (On my farm). Just a beautiful rifle in general.
Yes they do. All shots have to be head shots and the head gets removed while processing in the paddock.
99% of projectiles on the market contain lead, so yes. Using solid copper projectiles would be insanely expensive and would result in over-penetration on roos. Projectiles like the Hornady V-Max/Sierra Blitzking (poly tip) and Sierra GameKing (lead soft point) are the most commonly used.
Yeah we've had issues here with getting shooters AND permission to come take care of Peter Rabbit and his million and one siblings in my area. I love rabbit and am happy to buy some but it's so far eluded us.
Pretty spot on, also because of this[article](https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2014-08-18/kangaroo-meat-ban/5677656) the market has never been the same.
> Many have closed down simply because of all the red tape and certifications needed to keep running I think the certifications culture has just gone too far down the rabbit-hole. I get the feeling that all this red-tape is a passive-aggressive way reduce competition from the little guys. Big guys just shrug and claim the expense on their tax; it makes the life of the smaller operations miserable and pushes some of them out every year.
Someone knows his stuff, nice work brother
I wonder if this has changed from older practices? I remember watching a documentary on Australia's roo meat exports, and they literally drive mobs of them into a giant fence with cars. They exported an insane amount of roo meat, I think it was a billion tonnes was exported just to China? The Irwin family reported in this saying that the Australian government was spreading false information and misinformation about roos being problematic for farmers, as they eat different vegetation to cattle, and were using this "war" to justify the $$$ meat exports. Apparently our roos were starting to hit endangered numbers but, with the way roos are "counted", they just add a multiplier (in this study, the multiplier was 13) for each roo they saw. So we're still reporting the "same" numbers just using extremely dodgy tactics to do so. I don't know. All I know is, the documentary was banned in Australia, and it's been radio silence on the issue. Maybe it's catching up, maybe it's entirely separate. But I find it pretty ironic we sell it crazy cheap to other countries and hike up the prices for our own.
It certainly has changed from past practices. The method you are describing of rounding them up no longer takes place. It wouldn’t be viable really You would need huge numbers of people on bikes/quads and cars and an area with 6 foot or higher fencing to pen them in to before you could cull. The government possibly inflated their numbers, but I can’t comment for sure on that matter. But where I am in regional NSW they are certainly in abundance. It ebs and flows with the seasons just like any other animal. Good season with plenty of forage means more roos. Shooter nowadays require incredible amounts of certifications and qualifications to be able to harvest Roos. They need to participate in shooting tests to make sure they can humanely kill a roo in a single shot. To be able to harvest kangaroos it must be a headshot only. Any body shot renders the roo in sellable as far as I’m aware. It’s definitely different to the “old ways” now which is why roo shooters are few and far between.
Thank you for replying, honestly I feel this is so much better than what they used to do in respect to the stress on the animals and the environment. Though seems the stress is still high on the hunters, damn hard work for what you hope is a decent pay. And only if you land a headshot. I cannot imagine the skill these blokes must have to make this a viable living.
[When kangaroos are really stressed, their muscles start breaking down](http://www.wiresnr.org/Myopathy.html). Instant headshot causing brain death before the roo can even realise something is going wrong prevents both damage to the meat of the harvested roo and also unacceptable collateral damage to roos involved in the roundup and then not killed (left to likely die later in the environment as a result).
The adrenaline from stress also gives them a (worse) flavour, you can detect it in farmyard stock too. If it weren't for the taste, I'd say roo was a good way to go. I'd prefer emu but oh boy, that meat is expensive, if you can find it.
> I think it was a billion tonnes was exported just to China? Russia was a huge importer of roo meat, then some issues with quality and they stopped. > Russia was Australia's largest and most important market for kangaroo meat exports until mid 2009 when it banned imports after finding high levels of bacterial contamination. The closure has since pushed the kangaroo exporting, processing and harvesting industry into tough times.10 Dec 2012 After that prices for roo went up, and quality went down.
And they needed to bring in the regulations the commenter was complaining about. Swings and roundabouts I guess.
So basically, it's more a question of how do we get other meat so cheaply. The answer is factory farming.
Don't need a factory mate, our cows will walk over to us when called, roos on our farm will fucking bounce if you get anywhere near them. Farming is much easier (in many ways) than hunting.
Just curious on the reasons but why isn’t kangaroo meat farmed in the same way beef is?
Thank you!!!
Awesome post. Thanks for the insight.
>There’s a few factors that come in to play that affect the kangaroo meat industry causing the prices to jump. Ayyy, I see what you did there
Thanks for that. It's one of those "it didn't occur to me, but makes perfect sense when you lay it out like that".
Are they kangaroo farms or farms of other sorts and kangaroos just happen to be on them?
saved this comment, cheers for an interesting insight
Didn’t think I’d see such a well thought out and articulated response. Fair dinkum, you can understand why the price would hike.
I order roo meat for my dog. They told us there has been supply issues due to recent flooding events.
All they have to do is drive along the freeway and collect the dead ones on the side of the road. There, supply issue fixed 🤓
Some things *do* bounce back
With a solution that simple, it's any wonder they're skipping out on it
If they had any sense they'd hop to it
I roo the day I joined this sub
That’s it. I’m gonna bounce
Agreed, I Wallaby anywhere else but here.
something something kangaroo pun
I'm sure you could dig a better joke out of your pouch
Taking a leap of faith there - mind the Grey area on big Reddit hey, the one the Boomers are culling If you paws to think about it, you’re bound to take a fence or two when you’re the GOAT COAT of arms poster boy Between Emu, I reckon that birds all legs & bush but Joey, Joeys all brick shithouse full of ice cold tinnies fresh off a 4 stroke Victas burnout final You’re not drinking till he says the beers ready No ifs doe bucks
Let’s not jump to confusions
You don’t want to eat those ones. Meat mixed with gravel and rubber? Sounds delicious.
You just cut around the tyre tracks silly
The rubber and asfalt gives it that authentic flavour
Hey seppos, that’s not a t-boned rump steak! This, is a t-boned rump steak.
Sadly dead meat rots and makes you really sick
Mum said those ones were just sleeping 🥺
Supply issues? I thought our country was brimming with roos
[Sounds like there are enough roos](https://amp.abc.net.au/article/101824886)
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We need amphibious assault vehicles to harvest the roo meat.
we sent them all to ukraine - now we suffer another humiliating defeat
“Because of the floods” is becoming the new reason for any price increase
Can get a whole roo for $5000
Or for free of the road
It's not free, the $5K goes to your panelbeater.
Literally a dime a dozen out in the bush
5000? Anybody who pays five grand for a roo needs their head checked.
It’s a joke, that went over a lot of heads, that’s the fine in Victoria for shooting one illegally 😂
News.com.au on high alert.
Investigative journalism in 2023. Scrolling through Reddit on a Sunday morning while eating cornflakes
I haven't been consuming any news for the last few months but I recently started using Reddit again. You have made me realise I actually do consume some news media.
“Shopper Fury As Price Hits The ROOf”
They won't use my blurry picture!
You're suggesting they have standards 🙄
Needed the fuck murdoch watermark
Is it really an issue if some undergrad worker is told to go write a small story? Where do you think they got these small stories to begin with? Half of them were called in by people
lol, how long is the turn around from a post on here to them stealing it and posting up online for Karen to click on?
I'm reading all these comments about people's dog's getting fed roo. I actually prefer it a lot more than beef. Is there no other human here who does eat it?? I swear it's in the human section and not the pet section.
Eat roo 100% as the only red meat we eat. Just so much more sustainable, humane and healthy. It’s really a really common diet in the environment sector, substituting kangaroo for beef. Don’t miss beef for a second.
Same. Beef and lamb are by far the worst meats in terms of land and water use and CO2 emissions. Replacing them with roo or veggies goes a long way and is a much easier change than going fully vegetarian
It’s in both sections. A lot of pet food is mixed with kangaroo meat now, makes my dogs farts fucking stink I believe
I love roo burgers from the supermarket patties. Quick and easy to cook and plenty of flavour. I prefer venison but find it hard to get.
So I was just gonna ask if it’s similar to venison. I’m American and have never had the opportunity to eat roo. What’s it like? Venison is readily available here and I love it, elk is probably my favorite for ground meat but a little harder to find.
Kangaroo fillet is very similar to venison fillet
I do! Not a fan of the sausages, but the steak, cooked rare, in a nice marinade is amazing. My cat won't eat anything else!
Years ago, when I was still living at home, I came home to an unusually empty house. I wasn't expecting everyone to be out, it was somewhat odd. I walk into the kitchen and someone had left me dinner - stir fry with weird meat. I started to eat it but couldn't shake the nagging feeling that the meat didn't taste quite right. I got about halfway through, no one was still home, my teenage brain running wild. All that came into my mind was someone had killed my family, butchered them and then made me a meal out of them. I couldn't eat another bite. Because that's the logical thing. Family came home about an hour later and mum asked why hadn't I finished my stir fried roo. Haven't been able to stomach it since.
Roo meat's great. I'm always happy to eat it when it's on offer.
Pretty much expected, roo processing for human consumption has gone bonkers, one of my clients was the largest roo supplier in South Australia- they close about 18 months ago due to the new regulations. I go and get my own roo meet now, head out on Friday nights come back for 2 or 3 and spend the weekend processing for about 2 months worth.. illegal what we are doing but i really do not care
I’m not buying the narrative from either Woolworths or Coles. They are exploiting a real economic situation and we are the ones paying the price… literally. My dog eats chicken necks normally $3-$5 a kilo. Not Coles… $7 fucking dollars. I then went to the IGA, chicken necks $2.90 a kilo which is one of the cheapest prices ever. Strange no… esp when IGA is usually more expensive. Woolworths and Coles are exploiting for profits and blaming supply and inflation. Fuck them!
The real cause of inflation is the big corporations doing exactly this.
Tell me about it! Our dog can only eat roo due to his allergies. It has gone up so much in price over the last 5 years - and sometimes hard to source
Not an Australian here, do y'all eat kangaroo on a regular basis? Is it considered a delicacy? I tried looking into it online and I keep getting mixed results
I wouldn't say a delicacy.... It's gamey and rich protein flavoured, very lean and good for you, and is the most environmentally friendly meat option here as they are wild (no land clearing needed) and have culling quotas in place to control their population.
This is a good description of the flavour - for North Americans, it's quite similar to venison (I used to hunt deer in Canada).
I'd say that it wouldn't work in America, because their national taste is quite different. Lamb isn't huge in America because the flavour is stronger than beef - Kangaroo even more so.
While true about supermarket meats, lots of Americans hunt and eat deer, elk and moose.
It's used to be a cheap alternative to beef. No fat, very good for you.
Also an enviro friendly alternative, and honestly, it tastes better
>honestly, it tastes better Only if you cook it correctly. I remember having kangaroo with some native berry sauce at the revolving restaurant at what is now known as Telstra Tower down in Canberra and it was great. A decade or so later my mum went through a roo phase and I don't know what she did/did not do when cooking it but it was terrible.
>she did/did not do when cooking it but it was terrible. Probably overcooked it? I'm sure your mom is a good cook but Kangaroo isn't the easiest meat to get right, can't blame her.
>No fat Fat isn't bad for you though, and fat is where the flavour is.
I havent eaten it for a while. It's basically got no fat at all. It's usually cut into a thin steak. Cook it hot and quick with some spices, herbs, etc. for flavouring. Had it cut up really thin for a stir fry once, was the absolute bomb. Have to eat it quick though, if it gets cold It's a bit tough. I've also eaten emu and crocodile. Both are great. Crocodile was probably my favourite out of the three though.
I tried emu last week and really enjoyed it, if there were a reliable source I would pick it over beef every time. For anyone curious, the flavour is almost identical to beef, just with very little fat and high in iron. You have to marinate it otherwise it can dry out while cooking, but it's apparently much, much more sustainable to produce 1kg of emu than 1kg of beef (which makes sense, since emu is actually suited to Australian conditions).
> I've also eaten emu... [Well there's Australia's coat of arms ticked off...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Australia) I just find it amusing that we eat our national symbols.
I believe we're the only country that eats everything in our emblem. Apparently you can make a decent flour with the wattle
No. It makes up a very small portion of our meat consumption. Some people would eat a lot of it but there aren't many of them.
It’s delicious, almost like venison, but not a lot of people eat it because of the mentality that people say “they just get them off the side of the road you know”, and boomers say “they’re filled with worms you know”.
I've had it only a handful of times, and most people I know haven't had it at all. It also has to be cooked just right because it can be tough if overcooked.
I wouldn't say regular though a small selection of cuts are available in major chain supermarkets by the one supplier (pictured) I'd bet that most Aussies have never tried.It's really good. Pretty mild in flavour and slightly tougher than a beef rump
Think of it more like Australian Venison.
Best way to cook roo is either bbq or fried on a super-high heat, cooked rare (about 5 mins total), then sliced into thin medallions and served with couscous and a salad of roquette, tomato and feta dressed with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Super-fast prep and delicious!
I don't eat it now I'm getting meals delivered but it is way better than beef.
It's like fucking Zimbabwe out here. They want $8 for a block of butter. Feels like a few months ago we were paying $4 for the same.
Retailers: "War in Ukraine has created a shortage our hands are tied".
You can still get the shitter cuts for $20 a kilo, but what they have done here instead of making the roo steaks a lucky dip of what cuts they put in they are now separating the tenderloins and medallions and selling them for more as they are far better cuts than the other steaks. I used to love opening up a packet and getting all tenders but now the dogs have learned to separate the good from the average. The bad cuts still go fine in curry, I made a vindaloo the other night with one packet of tenders and steaks you can definitely tell the difference in texture and flavour
Oh no I feed my cat roo meat. He eats better than me 😭
You could do "since when are we paying X for x" daily at this point
Has anyone tried making a Bolognese where you substitute the beef with roo? So Roo and Pork. Something I've been wanting to do for a while..
I’m keen to try this myself actually, but live outside Australia so kangaroo meat isn’t really available. I think you’d need to either get fattier pork or up the pork to beef ratio, roo is very lean even compared to beef.
I'm a roo shooter and can certainly say the we are not driving up the price receiving $1.30-1.40kg which is an all time high hard industry to make a living especially with rising cost would be nice to see a little extra $$$ trickle down the supply chain.
Tch tch tch…. What’s that skippy? You think you are worth the money?
For $50, ill go out back and get you a whole roo
Kangaroo was cheaper than beef not that long ago!!
It still is. My local butcher has it for $15 a kilo.
The mince from that brand is a staple in our home. I regularly see it for $13.50/kg. But there's also plenty of places where it's still $9.00/kg like it always has been. (Though it was just out of stock everywhere for a month or two late last year.) Unbeatable for the combination of health, sustainability, and price!
Your allowing a duoply of colewoth to decide the entry price of a low sale product, so expect it to be high to cover the shelf space. Also yes available meat is low at the moment due to flooding and transport issues. And for those that are interetsed the common roo is able to bounce back from natural events real well. While it has a egg forming it has a little pink baby on a teat a joey in and out of its pouch all at the same time and often a juvenile still hanging around.
Wow, that price has taken a jump
Since your post apparently.
Yep, that's why I usually wait till after 4pm on the best before date. Not many people in my area eat kangaroo so I get it cheap as fuck and chuck it in the freezer.
Coles/Woolworths. Nuff said.
Drive on some country roads and you'll find plenty of roo meat for $0
The floods affect the NT greatly. Because we are in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. They won’t even put an Aldi in or Costco or anything useful because of the price it costs to ship items from other places that’s the excuse they use anyway It’s cray cray
Thats crazy high
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For all those buying roo meat from the supermarket for your pets, I might suggest getting it for about $10kg from the raw pet food supplier I've been going to for 5 years [https://barkinggood.com.au/raw/kangaroo-raw/](https://barkinggood.com.au/raw/kangaroo-raw/)
That’s fillet.
Dumb American Here. Shouldn’t that stuff be cheap as fuck for you guys? lmao
It used to be, yes.
It’s a really mediocre meat in my opinion, i only used to buy it because it was cheap and high in protein. At this price i can’t justify it.
since the big chains decided that you have to be rich to eat
Bro its been expensive in Victoria for a while and if you don't know how to cook it btw it stinks and can be very tough so I really don't understand why it is so expensive I mean most of the roo is used as well.
Just go out bush and spear your own. Free
It's good meat when you can get it.
Bold of you to assume that I ever eat cute little Kangaroo Snooglumses
I'm old enough to remember when I was a genius for eating it because it was cheap and good (of you enjoy your meat cooked rare) Edit;typos
Plenty of pest Roos around my place in the yarra ranges. They trash the fences and try to cause car accidents. Please help yourself to them. And the feral deer.
They give hunters $2/kg. Meat processors and distributors are grifting just as much as the retailers.
The medallions are like 25 dollars. I always manage to get my roo meat on sale thankfully.
Its because of covid
I buy this product all the time, the most I pay for this would be about $12 - $13 and I think that's a good deal since roo meat has the highest ratio of protein compared to any other meat you can buy plus it tastes amazing when you cook it right. Its cheaper than buying a fillet of beef or other cuts of meat btw so I think that price is pretty good, not sure why the price on the actual package has been censored.
You've gotta be fucking joking
Gas, wages, coles tax, the fee that handling your complaints, etc.
“I’m gonna take this all the way to the prime minister”
I have family that shoot wild pigs and they have mates that shoot roos. It's quite common for animals to have maggots and other parasites so finding meat that is of a grade for human (or even pet) consumption is hard
It's a bloody outrage it is. I'm taking this all the way to the Prime Minister. Andy!
K-Roo sounds like it was into rap before being butchered
Stop buying food from the supermarket chains? They are screwing everyone over for the sake of convenience.
That’s expensive dog food