What to do with surplus game: who can you give it to?

In France, surplus game can be given away or passed on through four routes: a private individual, a charity collection, a local retail business or an approved processing plant. The private individual is the simplest: whole carcass, unskinned and eviscerated, with trichinella information for wild boar. The other three need an initial inspection and an accompanying document.

Five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. Four wild boar and two roe deer on the day’s tally, eleven hunters, and half of them already have a full freezer. The chairman works round the barn, phone in hand: who wants some?

Everyone is willing to share. Knowing who to give the game to without falling foul of the rules, and doing it fast, is another matter. French law treats a gift, a token-price handover and a sale differently, and every destination has its own rules on how the carcass is presented, how it is kept cold and who checks it. This guide compares the options for surplus game, explains where a private individual can find some, and sets out a method for hunting societies and ACCAs. It covers French rules only.

What to do with surplus game: the four legal routes

In France, technical instruction DGAL/SDSSA/2018-800 recognises four routes for game meant for human consumption: an approved processing plant or slaughterhouse, a hunt meal or club meal, a local retail business, and handing the animal straight to the final consumer². The first is the long supply chain; the other three are short supply chains². A charity collection or a matching platform always falls under one of them. The table below compares where surplus game can go.

Every row has one thing in common: the animal leaves whole. Skinning and butchering before handover are not allowed in the standard short supply chains¹². A trial launched in 2024 allowed cutting into six pieces for businesses within 80 km, but it covered only fifteen hunting grounds².

The real bottleneck is elsewhere. A survey by the national veterinary and phytosanitary investigations brigade found that hunters eat 30% of the game they take, 9% goes through short supply chains, 6% through the long one, and 55% moves through unofficial grey channels². The same review counts 1,451 collection centres with a cold room, yet 11 departments taking more than 15,000 animals a year have none². Plenty of societies have no official outlet within an hour’s drive. The Fédération nationale des chasseurs (FNC) admits as much: a large share of the venison eaten in France moves outside official channels, and it wants to build up the short supply chains⁹.

Our view: for a society with no plant nearby, the private individual and the charity collection are the two realistic outlets. Both need setting up before the season.

How to give game to a private individual without breaking the rules

To hand game to a private individual in France, give them the whole carcass, eviscerated and unskinned, in small quantities, and warn them about trichinellosis if it is a wild boar¹. That is all the law asks on this route. An initial inspection and a trichinella test are strongly recommended, but not required².

The initial inspection, the accompanying document and the trichinella test are covered in full in our guide to initial game inspection after a driven hunt. Three distinctions matter here.

Gift, token price or sale: where is the line?

1. A gift. You hand the animal over free of charge. Carrying game from a hunt for non-commercial purposes is unrestricted, subject to the health rules¹⁰. Giving it away does not put you in the clear: the Ministry of Agriculture points out that the hunter can still be held personally liable if the consumer falls ill, even when nothing changed hands¹.
2. A token price. The individual pays a small sum. For the platform it offers its members, the Federation des chasseurs de Seine-et-Marne says the suggested prices come to about the cost of a tag⁶. The rules are still those for handing game to the final consumer: small quantities, whole carcass¹.
3. A sale to a business. A butcher, a restaurant or a caterer is not a final consumer. For a local retail business, the initial inspection, the accompanying document and, for wild boar, testing for trichinella larvae all become mandatory².

Two things are out in every case: cutting the animal into pieces for a private individual, and selling home-made terrines and pates. The journal Viandes & Produits Carnes puts the sale of processed products to private individuals squarely in the illegal grey market².

What practical precautions should you take at handover?

Tell them what to bring: a suitable vehicle, a tarpaulin and a transport container, and no bin bags, some of which contain substances that spoil meat⁵. Without a cold room, the federation platform advises handing the animal over on the evening of the hunt itself; with a cold room, the next day works⁵.

For wild boar, give them something in writing about trichinellosis. The Ministry says the only safeguard for untested meat is to cook it right through, to 71°C, until it is grey, and warns that freezing, curing and smoking are not reliable¹. It also advises the consumer to ask the hunter for a trichinella test certificate¹.

Get a transfer certificate signed. National rules do not require one, but federation platforms insist on it and present it as cover for both sides⁵⁶.

Where can a private individual find game?

A private individual after game in France has three places to start: the hunting society or ACCA (municipal hunting association) in their commune, the departmental federation, and a federation matching platform where the department has one. In every case they take the animal whole, unskinned and eviscerated, for themselves and their family⁵.

What does a platform like Gibier pour Tous do?

Gibier pour Tous describes itself as a matching platform between private individuals after game for their own table and hunters who hand it over free or for a token price⁴. It was set up by C2F Concept and the Federation des chasseurs du Cher¹¹, and is paid for by the departmental federation that takes it on⁵.

How it works:

1. The hunting ground manager signs up with their hunting ground number⁶.
2. They create a hunt with the date and a rough number of animals to pass on⁵.
3. The platform sends back a list of private individuals, ranked on how quickly they answer, how close they live and what they want⁵.
4. The hunter rings them directly: an individual never sees the hunter’s details until the call comes⁵.
5. After the handover, the hunter records what went where, which keeps the waiting lists current⁶⁵.

The conditions are strict: whole animal, unskinned and eviscerated, a duty to warn about trichinellosis, and a transfer certificate signed at each handover⁶. The platform is not there for selling to the trade⁵.

On coverage, the platform’s FAQ lists Cher, Creuse, Indre and Indre-et-Loire⁵, and Seine-et-Marne opened it to its members for the 2025-2026 season⁶. That list may not be complete: check with your federation.

What if there is no platform in your department?

Ring the chairman of the hunting society or ACCA in your commune, or your departmental federation, before the season opens. Say what you can take and whether you can come the same evening with a suitable vehicle.

Associations, collections, collectors: options for larger numbers

When there is more game than private individuals can take, three options are left: a federation charity collection, a collector who supplies an approved plant, and a local business. All three need planning ahead.

Federation charity collections

Since 2013, the trade body InterProchasse has supplied venison to people helped by the Federation francaise des banques alimentaires (French food banks) through the “Les chasseurs ont du coeur” (Hunters have heart) operation⁸. Some departmental federations take part and collect game from their members.

In Seine-et-Marne, the departmental federation and the Ile-de-France regional federation ran the 2024 collection from 18 November to 13 December, with drop-off at the cold room at their Breau headquarters⁷. They asked for deer, wild boar over 30 kg live weight and roe deer over 15 kg live weight⁷. The year before, the operation had put nearly 10,000 game meals on the table at food banks in Paris and Ile-de-France⁷.

Three points for a hunting society:

1. The dates are set well in advance, usually in the run-up to Christmas: put them in the driven hunt calendar.
2. A minimum weight may apply: a young boar or a small roe deer can be turned away.
3. Drop-off is at a named cold room, not at the charity’s own premises.

Do not take an unskinned carcass straight to a food charity. The Ministry lists the club meal among the cases where a trichinella sample is required for wild boar¹, and the sources consulted say nothing about handing game directly to a charity. Go through your federation.

The collector and the approved processing plant

This is the long supply chain. A professional collector picks up carcasses in fur or feather from first holders or collection centres and takes them to a collection centre or an approved processing plant³. An initial inspection by a trained hunter and an accompanying document are mandatory².

At the collection centre, big game is held at 7°C or below, and freezing, skinning and butchering are banned³. Ask what they pay before you commit.

The limit is geography: 33 approved plants across just 22 departments². If nobody collects near you, this outlet does not exist for your society.

The local retail business

The village butcher or restaurant is an option, within limits. In France the business must be within 80 km of where the animal was shot, and may only take a small quantity, equivalent to one day’s harvest². Whole carcasses, unskinned and eviscerated, with an initial inspection, an accompanying document and, for wild boar, a trichinella test². The business buys and sets its own price.

How to manage surplus game in a hunting society or ACCA

Decide where surplus game goes before the season opens, at a committee meeting, instead of hunting for takers every Sunday. Six steps to write into the internal regulations, alongside the rest of the organisation of an ACCA.

1. Name the first holder. In France that is the hunter who shot the animal or, as an exception, the holder of the hunting rights, where the internal regulations say the game belongs to them³. They are the one who gives it away or passes it on.
2. Set an order of priority. For example: hunters present, then the landowners and farmers whose ground you hunt, then a list of private individuals, then the charity collection or the collector.
3. Keep a list of private individuals. Name, commune, phone number, what they will take (roe deer, a whole wild boar), whether they can come the same evening. Update it after each handover.
4. Sort out cold storage. Without a cold room, the animal has to go the same evening⁵. Ask your federation where the nearest collection centre is.
5. Get the paperwork ready. Written information on trichinellosis, a transfer certificate template, and initial inspection forms for the routes that need them.
6. Write down every animal. Species, date, weight, who took it. If a question comes up about a haunch of wild boar, you know where it came from and where it went.

None of this happens until the hunt itself has gone safely and smoothly. For the preparation of the day, see our guide to wild boar driven hunts and our driven hunt safety instructions.

Mes Chasses does not handle the giving away or passing on of game. Before the driven hunt, hunt invitations tell you who is coming, so you know how many hunters will leave with venison. Afterwards, the “Hunt journal” lists the harvest with the time and the name of the shooter. The “Harvest tally” on the hunt page gives the number of animals taken, and each hunter’s “Trophies” screen shows the weight by species: enough to keep a record of where everything went, straight from the digital hunt logbook.

Conclusion

Surplus game is not something you sort out on Sunday evening. In France the simplest route is still the private individual: whole carcass, unskinned, eviscerated, small quantity, written trichinella information for wild boar. Free or for a token price, you remain liable; a trichinella test and an initial inspection are your best cover.

For bigger numbers, your federation’s charity collection and an approved collector are the two official outlets, as long as they exist near you. Selling to a business means an initial inspection, an accompanying document and that 80 km radius.

The rules and the options on the ground vary from one department to the next. Before your next committee meeting, ring your departmental federation and ask three things: is there a matching platform, is there a collection this season, where is the nearest collection centre? Then vote on the order of priority and draw up the list of private individuals.

To know every week who is coming to the driven hunt and to keep a record of the harvest, try Mes Chasses for free at app.meschasses.com.

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