With wild deer and boar being hunted around Japan to control their populations and reduce crop damage, a number of food makers and local governments have started marketing game-meat products.

In November last year, the Becker's casual restaurant chain operated by JR East Food Business Co. launched a hamburger using deer meat called the gibier burger, after the French word "gibier" for game.

The restaurant, which runs about 20 outlets in the Tokyo metropolitan area, initially planned to sell 8,000 gibier burgers in two months, but they sold out in just two weeks.