My name is Sanjay Bhattacharya, and I’m very lucky to have made the hobbies I love into my job - and I do a lot of different jobs.

I love cooking - so I became a chef, starting out at a fine dining restaurant in Oxford where I learnt the fundamentals of good cooking, including loads of onion peeling, but also the basics of fish & animal butchery, before moving around the country and ending up here in Aberdeenshire working at the lovely Finzean Farm Shop.

I love stalking, shooting and working with wild meat - so I trained myself more as a butcher, specialising in venison and feathered game, working on estates in the local area. Once I got my confidence up doing butchery, I realised this was one of my favourite niches and continue to do this on a freelance basis.

I love teaching and meeting new people - so I run teaching events and demonstrations, large and small, where I can share my knowledge of cookery, butchery and more with like-minded individuals. I’ve met so many amazing people and worked on great projects, all with the shared language of food.

As I’m self taught for a lot of my skills, butchery especially, I find I can explain them well to other beginners too - it was only 10 years ago that I butchered my first deer, and I’m still learning. I’m pretty good, but there’s always room for improvement and I love the process of learning from others whilst I teach, and learning how to teach, too!

I’m passionate about all my work, and I try to convey that in every meal that I serve and every class I instruct. I hope that always comes across, and it’s helped by the fact that I derive a huge amount of pleasure from the experiences I can provide to clients - whether that’s seeing their first deer go from carcass to beautiful handmade sausages, or their first time trying some of my Indian game dishes, which I’ve become quite well known for.

I am the Scotland Ambassador for Eat Wild, an advocacy group focused on expanding the market for game meat in the UK. We want to see our brilliant pheasant, partridge, duck, venison, grouse, rabbit and much more be a regular feature on British tables, rather than an occasional treat. We’re working with providers and retailers to increase consumer access to all wild meat, at affordable price points and in formats that are exciting and accessible to everyone. In this role, I visit country fairs, schools and more to offer tasters, debunk some of the common myths surrounding cooking with game, and share my passion for wild meat with everyone.

I am also an active member of The British Deer Society in our two local branches - Highlands and North East. As a charity dedicated to deer, we’re interested in all aspects of deer - their lives, welfare and responsible management. My background in science (I squeezed a degree in Biochemistry into the mix) gives me a huge appreciation for data driven approaches to deer management, and the BDS promotes, funds and supports excellent research projects that look at all elements of how deer and humans interact with shared ecosystems. We run workshops for members to improve their skills and knowledge, and my personal focus is to ensure that stalkers appreciate that we are all food producers too!

If there’s other questions you have, or would like to know more about me, feel free to contact me through this website or to message me on Instagram - that’s where I’m most active.

You can learn more about Eat Wild here: https://www.eatwild.co/

You can learn more about The British Deer Society here: https://bds.org.uk/