Game meat prices in Switzerland: when does the season start, and what does game cost?

The Swiss game season opens with the hunt in September in most cantons; a few open earlier and close only in February. In Graubünden, the 2026 Hochjagd runs 3–13 September and 21–30 September; in Ticino the caccia alta runs 5–19 September and 23–27 September; in canton Bern, by contrast, hunting runs 2 August to 28 February (sources: gr.ch, ti.ch, weu.be.ch). Nearly 90% of all game meat in Switzerland is sold in the autumn months (LID, quoted in Luzerner Zeitung, 5 October 2019, and St. Galler Tagblatt, 17 October 2019), so the window is short and worth preparing for. This guide deliberately quotes no weekly prices: current meat and game promotions from every chain are live in the Rappn app.

Sources checked on an ongoing basis. gr.ch (Office for Hunting and Fishing, 2026 dates), ti.ch (caccia alta 2026), ow.ch, ar.ch and fr.ch (2026 hunting periods), weu.be.ch (canton Bern), jagdstatistik.ch (the federal hunting statistics, run by Wildtier Schweiz on behalf of the BAFU), lid.ch (the Swiss agricultural information service, 24 October 2024 and 25 September 2025), linth24.ch (4 November 2024) and stgallerbauer.ch (12 November 2024), all carrying Proviande, Swiss-Impex, SVH and JagdSchweiz figures, swissinfo.ch (28 October 2016, federal customs data), Limmattaler Zeitung (8 October 2015, Proviande figures), schweizerfleisch.ch (Proviande) on Metzgete and freezer times, blv.admin.ch on labelling, plus the published price lists of wildfleisch.ch (Weinländer Wildspezialitäten, Thalheim ZH), vomfritz.ch, luethis-fleischwaren.ch, jg-schenkenberg.ch and wildverkaufbuergin.ch. Promotion days: corporate.migros.ch and foodaktuell.ch (26 January 2026). Last verified: July 2026.

Rappn is the only neutral grocery price comparison app in Switzerland, with no commercial agreements with any retailer.

When does the game season start in Switzerland in 2026?

There is no national start date. Hunting is regulated canton by canton, and each canton sets its dates afresh every year. Switzerland runs two systems side by side: 16 cantons use Patentjagd, where the season is compressed into a few autumn weeks but a permit covers the whole canton, and 9 cantons use Revierjagd, where municipalities lease hunting rights to hunting societies, typically on eight-year contracts (source: jagdstatistik.ch). Canton Geneva is the outlier: hunting was abolished there by popular vote in 1974, and state-salaried game wardens do the culling instead (source: jagdstatistik.ch).

What that means for your shopping comes in two parts. First: game from the Swiss hunt cannot reach butchers before the first week of September in the Patentjagd cantons, because there is no hunting before then. If you specifically want Swiss game from the regional hunt, plan for September to November and ask the seller directly. Second: imported game is not bound by those dates. It can typically sit on the shelf for the whole season, and frozen outside it too — which is also why the autumn shelf is fuller than the Swiss hunting calendar alone would allow.

Where does the game meat in Swiss shops actually come from?

Mostly not Switzerland. In 2023, according to Proviande, 2,609 tonnes of game meat came in through foreign trade, and the domestic share reached "just over 35%" (sources: lid.ch, 24 October 2024; linth24.ch, 4 November 2024; stgallerbauer.ch, 12 November 2024, all citing Proviande and Swiss-Impex). When the Limmattaler Zeitung worked through Proviande's numbers in 2015, the imported share was 68% of a total consumption of 4,213 tonnes. The most recent available report is back to describing the domestic share as "just under a third" (lid.ch, 25 September 2025) — so it is not rising in a straight line, it fluctuates. Only the order of magnitude is stable: the domestic hunt does not cover autumn demand.

The most detailed country split available comes from customs data for 2015: Austria supplied 26% of game imports (977 tonnes), New Zealand 25%, Slovenia 10%, Germany and the Czech Republic 8% each, at an average import price of CHF 14.20 per kilo (source: swissinfo.ch, 28 October 2016, data from the federal customs directorate). The more recent report still names Austria, Germany, Slovenia and New Zealand as the main suppliers (lid.ch, 24 October 2024). In retail the assortment follows a simple logic: venison typically comes from large farms in New Zealand, while roe deer cannot be farmed and is shot in the wild, mostly in Austria, Hungary, or labelled generically as "Europe" (Limmattaler Zeitung, 8 October 2015).

The Swiss side is small but growing: in 2023, 324 farms held 13,212 deer, of which 10,628 fallow deer and 2,584 red deer (SVH, via stgallerbauer.ch); in 2024 it was "just over 13,000 deer on 325 farms" (lid.ch, 25 September 2025). The 2023 hunt took roughly 43,500 roe deer, 13,200 red deer, 10,000 chamois, 8,500 wild boar, 1,000 ibex and 120 sika deer (JagdSchweiz, via lid.ch and stgallerbauer.ch). In 2024, 78,689 hoofed animals were shot in total, by around 31,600 hunters (lid.ch, 25 September 2025, citing the Federal Statistical Office, BAFU, Agristat and JagdSchweiz).

What does game meat cost per kilo in Switzerland?

It depends heavily on the cut and the channel, and one common assumption does not survive contact with the price lists: Swiss game is not automatically the most expensive. The kilo prices below are taken from published price lists or calculated from pack price and weight. They are examples from individual sellers, not a national average.

Two patterns stand out. First, the gap between a prime cut and a braising cut is wider than the gap between Swiss and imported game: roe deer fillet costs CHF 95/kg at the Thalheim dealer, while roe deer strips from the same animal cost CHF 45/kg and the stewing cuts for a pfeffer CHF 26/kg (wildfleisch.ch) — a factor of more than three between the dearest and the cheapest roe deer cut at one and the same Swiss dealer. Second, small packs hide high kilo prices. CHF 17.50 for 200 g of roe deer entrecôte is CHF 87.50 per kilo (luethis-fleischwaren.ch). That is exactly what the unit price is for, and in the Rappn app the promotional price and the unit price sit side by side so you can compare pack sizes and chains directly.

A third route is the whole animal straight from the hunt. The Jagdgesellschaft Schenkenberg charges CHF 10 to 14 per kilo for roe deer "in the skin" depending on weight, and CHF 8 per kilo for wild boar, while stating openly that with butchering you should budget "roughly CHF 35/kg" all in (jg-schenkenberg.ch). One published butchering tariff shows the order of magnitude: from 1 January 2026, CHF 80 for a roe deer, CHF 100 to 140 for a wild boar, CHF 120 for a chamois and CHF 170 for a red deer (wildverkaufbuergin.ch). This only pays off if you have freezer space for a whole animal.

Supermarket, butcher, or straight from the hunter?

What is a Metzgete, and is it the same thing as game?

No, and the mix-up is common because both fall in the same weeks. "Metzgete" means both the slaughter itself and the feast that follows, and it is about pork, not game. In French-speaking Switzerland the same feast is called "la Fête du cochon". The origin is economic: farming families fattened pigs over the summer and slaughtered them in autumn to get through the winter without feeding them through it. The season runs from mid-September into December. A traditional Schlachtplatte centres on blood sausage and liver sausage, alongside gnagi, schnörrli, bacon, rippli and bratwurst, with sauerkraut or pickled turnips, apple sauce, beans and potatoes or rösti (source: schweizerfleisch.ch, Proviande).

The distinction matters for your budget: Metzgete cuts are inexpensive pork, while game is a seasonal product whose prime cuts command high kilo prices. If your goal is cheap autumn cooking, the Metzgete counter gives you far more room than the game display.

Fresh or frozen: which is worth it?

With game, frozen is not a compromise — it is the norm, because a hunting season of a few weeks per canton could not supply the whole year any other way. In Proviande's freezer table, lean roe deer, red deer and chamois meat sit at roughly 12 months, while ready-made pfeffer sits at only about 3 months; minced meat sits at about 3 months there too, across every kind of meat. "Gefrorenes Fleisch sollte langsam auftauen" — frozen meat should be thawed slowly — states the same source (source: schweizerfleisch.ch, Proviande). In practice: whole cuts take the freezer well, processed products much less so. If you stock up in season, saddle, fillet and roasting joints are the better buy than finished pfeffer.

How do I read the origin on the pack?

Through the country of production, and it is not optional: the country of production "must always be declared in Switzerland", and the declaration is only waived where the country already follows from the product designation itself or from the manufacturer's address (source: blv.admin.ch, the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office). The information is therefore always on the pack — you just have to read it. How precise it is varies: alongside named countries, collective labels such as "Europe" or "EU" are common, because supplier countries can change within a single season (Limmattaler Zeitung, 8 October 2015). Anyone hunting for Swiss game will therefore struggle outside the direct channels, and is most likely to find it at a butcher, a game dealer or a farm shop.

Bottom line: when is game a good deal?

It depends on what you are cooking and where you buy. If you want a prime cut for an occasion, you will pay three figures per kilo in every channel — there, quality and origin decide, not price. If you are planning game as an autumn family meal, braising cuts, strips and wild boar are far cheaper, and it is in that price bracket that chain promotions make the biggest difference. And if you specifically want Swiss game, plan for September to November and ask a butcher or game dealer, rather than hoping to find it on a shelf.

The season starts in early September. Set a price alert in the Rappn app for "Wild", "Hirsch" or "Reh" and the app tells you the moment a chain's first game promotion goes live — over 10,000 offers, over 3,000 supermarkets, 100% free and with no commercial agreements. Read on: cheapest meat in Switzerland for the channel-by-channel comparison, meat deals in Switzerland for the promotion rhythm, and frozen food prices for the stocking-up question.