So, you’re a recently converted vegetarian and have been revelling in the brave new world of waitstaff bothering (are you sure this mushroom ravioli wasn’t prepared within the same airspace as the rib-eye? Is the panna cotta made with gelatin?) Or you’re a tofu-smoking, longtime flier of the green V flag. Maybe you’re one of those cheating veggies—sorry, flexitarians.
Either way, you’re probably a fan of goat cheese. From tarts to salads and sandwich fillings, the creamy fromage is a staple of almost any vegetarian menu.
Videos by VICE
But could the veggie favourite be just as cruel as the meat dishes plant-based eaters choose to avoid? Look beyond the cheese and you find a darker side to the goat milk industry—one that sees thousands of male goats euthanised at birth every year.
Here’s the thing. While female goats—known as nannies—can be used for their milk, billies (male goats) are fairly useless in this respect. With no market for billies or system in place to accommodate raising them, it is estimated that 40,000 male goats are killed at birth every year. It’s a worrying stat for both food waste campaigners and those in animal welfare.
“Slaughtering animals immediately after birth simply because they do not fit the purpose they were bred for is a terrible waste of life and resources,” says Carol McKenna, director of campaigns at the Compassion in World Farming charity. “It is a little known fact that this is commonplace in the goat dairy industry. It would be better to raise young male dairy kids for meat in systems with good welfare.”
Cabrito kid goat meat steaks. Photo courtesy goat meat.
Animal campaigners say that this side of the goat dairy industry has long been kept in the dark, despite the huge amount of wasted meat it results in. But with goat meat appearing on high-end restaurant menus, as well as street food stalls and supermarkets in recent years, more food industry figures are questioning what exactly happens to these billies.
Figures like former chef James Whetlor, who founded Devon-based kid meat company Cabrito as a way to create a consumer market for goat meat and reduce waste. He explains that the process of slaughtering billies at birth cannot be blamed entirely on farmers.
“There isn’t a farmer in the land who wants to knock his billies on the head but you’re talking about a much more complex issue than just the farmers not being bothered to do it,” he says. “There are many challenges that are unique to rearing billies. For example, the milk powder is expensive, which means you end up with an expensive product for a country that doesn’t have a history of eating goat meat.”
Whetlor discovered the dilemma of the male kid goat back in 2011. His friend Will Atkinson, who had begun making goat cheese at Hill Farm Dairy in Somerset, had found himself with a glut of billies. At the time, Whetlor was working in the kitchens of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage, and offered to take the goats off Atkinson’s hands, using the meat on his menu.
Goat meat kofta. Photo courtesy Gourmet Goat.
The goat meat dishes were a great success, prompting Whetlor to set up Cabrito as a business. He now supplies kid meat to chefs across the UK and is stocked by online supermarket Ocado. Respected London chef Jeremy Lee was one of Whetlor’s first customers.
“For a long time, meats such as mutton, goat, or kid were hard to find,” says Lee. “It is a beautiful delicate meat that eats very well with many dishes of beans and vegetables, herbs, and salads. It’s lovely cold too.”
Launched in 2014, London-based street food stall Gourmet Goat also aims to tackle the problem of unwanted billies, but the meat’s tender flavour was their driving force.
“I’m Greek-Cypriot and goat is something I grew up with, so when I came to the UK to study, I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get hold of it,” says Nadia Stokes, who runs the stall with husband Nick at Borough Market. “I felt like there was really something missing from the cuisine because it’s so core to the Mediterranean diet.”
Goat meat pita. Photo courtesy Gourmet Goat.
Gourmet Goat may now serve up to 10,000 goat meat dishes in a single week, but Stokes says diners weren’t always so receptive.
“People turned their nose up at it and said the idea of eating goat was disgusting and in the same breath, would go off to McDonald’s,” she says. “Those views absolutely change when people try it. People have probably had it anyway if they’ve been on holiday to Greece where the word for ‘lamb’ and ‘goat’ is used interchangeably.”
With more of us beginning enjoy goat meat, what does the future hold for billies? There’s still huge headway to be made in cutting the number of kids slaughtered at birth and Stokes admits that she worries our increased appetite for the meat may result in cheap, substandard versions shipped being in from abroad, but Whetlor is hopeful.
“The demand has always been there. I’ve not created it, just stepped in the middle,” he says. “There are now some serious operations getting involved as well as supermarkets. It’s going to get harder for dairies to justify knocking billies on the head now that there’s a solution.”
Just think—next time you tuck into a smokin’ kid kebab, not only have you prevented the premature death of a baby billy, you’ve also won a moral victory over your veggie friends.
And nothing tastes sweeter than that.
