Welcome to Winston Churchill Venison at Balagowan Deer Larder

Winston Churchill Stalking was established Oct 1988. At this time we were focused on providing a deer stalking service for sportsmen. All the deer carcasses generated from this activity were sold on to a dealer, who would collect the carcasses, take them to a central plant, where they were processed and the vast majority of the venison was exported. The value of the carcasses fluctuated violently due to global events such as, changes in exchange rates, mad cow disease, the iron curtain coming down and many others, all of which were beyond our influence.

We very quickly realised that the only way to put stability into our business was to take the marketing of our venison into our own hands. We had great confidence in our own product as it was well tested and tried by ourselves and wanted to sell our venison as local as possible but certainly within the UK - why export such wonderful natural meat?!!

Winston Churchill Venison was established, in a very small building, in early 1990 . Winston taught himself butchery in order to sell to friends and family and slowly the business grew. Initially we sold our surplus carcasses to the dealers, but now we use all our own and buy in from neighbouring stalkers when the need arises. All of our venison is harvested from the wild.

We are a very small, family run business that takes great pride in all that we do. We are located in an Argyllshire forest, very near to Dunoon with breath taking views into Glen Kin and Kilmun hills across the Holy Loch. Balagowan has been our residence since 1986 and sits on the south western edge of the Loch Lomond National Park.

As the business grew we realised that we were outgrowing our small premises. The larder - purpose built during the year 2000 - was designed with the help of our local Environmental Health Department so that we covered all health and safety aspects, thus we have a very up to date, and user friendly, butchery. Once we commissioned the new larder our sales grew even faster which dictated that we needed to employ a skilled butcher as Winston could not keep pace with demand!!

We now have two butchers. Alastair who joined us during 2003 and leads the butchery team. He is also an accomplished deerstalker and can join the stalking team as and when required! Peter joined us as a trainee just after christmas 2009 and just before his 16th birthday. He has since sailed through his apprenticeship and is a fully qualified butcher. He is now on a gamekeepers/ deerstalkers course through Highland college, doing his first year's practical with Anton, working with gamebirds and his second year with Paul, working with deer.

Contact us for all of your requirements, from dinner parties to weddings