The abattoir in Bela Bela, north of Johannesburg, is among only a handful in the country dedicated to game meat.
Authorities say the untapped sector could create jobs and help preserve wildlife — while pleasing the palates of climate- and health-conscious meat eaters.
“We want to add a dimension into your dinner plate by giving you an organic game meat from the wild,” Khorommbi Matibe, the environment ministry’s biodiversity economy chief, told AFP.
A top wildlife tourism destination, South Africa produces around 60,000 tonnes of game meat a year — equivalent in weight to roughly 60,000 giraffes.
But only a fraction ends up in butcheries and supermarkets. Ninety percent is hunted and consumed informally, according to the government.
Even less is exported.
In 2019, just over 3,000 tonnes of ostrich, crocodile and zebra were shipped to the European Union, China and the UAE, it said.
Authorities would like to serve up much more.
In March, they said they want to grow the sector from 4.6 billion rand ($250 million) in 2020 to 27.6 billion rand by 2036, adopting a strategy published late last year.
With unemployment sitting at 32.9 percent nationally, this could create jobs in rural, economically deprived areas.
Matibe said there are good reasons for barbecuing more springboks.
Game animals release less methane — a greenhouse gas — than cattle, whose burps are a top source of global warming emissions from agriculture.
Foraging in the wild, their meat is by definition free-range and lean.
A 2023 study by researchers at Stellenbosch University, found that zebra meat in particular was highly nutritious and very low in fat.
Eating more of it could also help conservation efforts, the government argues.
South Africa has long adopted a market-oriented approach to conservation, based on the belief that farmers have a better incentive to look after wildlife if they can profit from it.
Critics say the model exploits and commoditises animals. But it has proved largely successful.
The country’s wildlife population has grown from about 500,000 in the 1960s to more than 20 million today. About 80 percent is in private game reserves that attract tourists and hunters.
Some meat could come from the hundreds of herbivores that are culled every year to keep numbers within sustainable levels, the government says.
