Why Lamb Eating Quality Must Improve

It is a bad time to be a sheep farmer. The price for each lamb sold is nearly 20% lower than this time last year. Few businesses in any sector can stand such a severe drop in their income.

The reasons for the price fall are well known. On the demand side, a strong £ versus the euro means fewer exports to continental Europe, the Chinese and Russian markets are weakening, and China is reducing tanning capacity so wants fewer hides.  Most worryingly of all UK domestic consumption continues its downward trend.  And at this time of weak demand, supply is rocketing as New Zealand extends its season and the highest volume of home produced lambs since 2008 are forecast to hit the market this year.

Of all the factors contributing to the price drop, the only one within the industry’s control is domestic consumption. There have been recent calls for retailers to pass the lower price they are paying on to their customers, thereby stimulating sales, and calls for some retailers, who should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves, to stop stocking New Zealand lamb at this time when UK lamb is at its best and the NZ version out of season.

Both would help, but they are merely a short term sticking plaster over the long term gaping wound of plummeting domestic consumption. The National Sheep Association in its “Vision for Sheep Farming” says that consumption has decreased by two thirds since 1990, from 7.5 kg per person per year to 1.9kg today.

The problem is this - consumers buying lamb are too often faced with a poor quality product, yet are expected to pay a premium price for it. And no one in the industry has grasped the quality nettle.

So what is “poor quality”?

The picture above, which is typical of what is sold in all of the supermarkets, illustrates the main problem which is fattiness. According to EBLEX 57% of consumers say that lamb tends to be fatty, and I would bet that the figure is higher among younger people.  The problem is compounded by retailers selling product where too much fat has been left on.  Indeed, Tesco has the gall to quote fat levels “when the product is trimmed of fat”. Often too, the bit of the product visible in the pack looks lean but turn it over at home and the underside is more fat than lean.

So put yourself in the position of the consumer who has shelled out for the most expensively priced meat on the supermarket shelf, and yet has to throw away as much as half of the product they bought. No wonder that 45% of people say that lamb is too expensive.

Lamb eating quality is also variable.  It is well known that the older the lamb, the tougher the meat. Ram lambs left entire develop odd flavours after about 30 weeks of age. Lambs fed on concentrates tend to become fattier, and their fat tends to be yellower which some consumers do not like.

So lamb is fatty, expensive and variable in quality. No wonder that the domestic market is declining at such a rapid rate.

The depressing thing is that all of this is well known, and has been for at least 20 years. The old MLC did a study in 1994 identifying the same issues.

Where will it end? It is not over dramatic to suggest that lamb will become a sideline product in UK supermarkets, only picked up by consumers when it is sold at a knock down price.  Already the amount of shelf space given to it is shrinking every season. It does not receive the same innovation push as other meats. Out of sight it will soon become out of mind to the average consumer.

With a small domestic market the industry infrastructure behind it will crack. Farmers will cease farming. There will be less abattoirs because volumes are too low for viability. Auction marts and hauliers will suffer.

The landscape will change too as sheep cease to graze the hills and moorlands.

Yes, there may well be an opportunity for niche lamb production, but the large scale lamb industry as we know it today will be no more.

Yet no one in the UK has shown the necessary leadership to galvanise the industry and get the problems solved.

NSA Vision for Sheep Farming Says Domestic Market Growth is Vital - But Who Will Lead the Charge?

The National Sheep Association/NFU’s recently published vision for UK sheep farming identifies domestic market growth as critical to a healthy future.

Quite right too. The Vision paper says that domestic lamb consumption has plummeted by nearly two thirds since 1990, and that relying on a buoyant export market, dependent as it is on currency values, will not save us.

What is required, says the paper, is that “we” have to persuade UK consumers, particularly younger ones, that lamb is a tasty nutritious source of food. They suggest that innovative cuts, more branding, and new products will help. (More ready meals would be good too as lamb is woefully underrepresented in this huge, fast growing and youth appealing market segment.)

Th paper also points out that price is key. It is no accident that after years of decline the volume of lamb bought from supermarkets grew by 14% in 2013 due to an average 5% drop in price.  But prices are volatile, retailers are fickle, and the price of lamb could accelerate once again.

Lower prices if achievable, and new brands and products will help, but they will not be enough, and the Vision paper ducks two major challenges.

 For starters, who are the “we” who will lead the charge to grow the domestic market? Who precisely is accountable for growing an industry? Is it the Association, the NFU, retailers, processors, levy bodies, or perhaps farmers? Unless there is clear accountability for setting and delivering the growth agenda then nothing will happen and this critical contributor to achieving the Vision will drown in a sea of many words, much opinion, but little action.

The second challenge is what should be done.

The investigation needs to go deeper than price reductions and innovation. Whoever is going to lead the industry growth charge needs address the biggest problem with lamb, and that is fattiness. According to work done by EBLEX, 57% of people say that lamb tends to be fatty compared with 28% for beef, and that number may well be higher among the young.

All players in the food chain have a role to play in understanding what makes lamb fatty, and then working to address the problem.

Why, for example, does New Zealand lamb as presented in the shops contain around half the fat of British lamb. Is it the NZ lamb diet, or overly fat lambs being so heavily penalised that the farmer will not submit them to the NZ abattoir, or perhaps carcasses arrive in the UK with much of the fat trimmed off.

Processors and retailers need to be much stricter about removing excess fat from the product. Consumers buy with their eyes and will shun a product where they can see superfluous fat, or even worse buy and once home realise that much of the product will be consigned to the bin. It is flabbergasting to note from Tesco’s website that they quote fat content as bought, and then with the fat cut off by the consumer. Why should the consumer have to pay for something they will not eat!

Thirdly, more attention needs to be paid to offering lower fat alternatives just as they do in the beef market where it is possible to buy mince with fat levels ranging from 5% to 20%.

The NSA and the Vision paper’s co authors the NFU are confident that sheep farming can expand, but without a clear champion focused on understanding and delivering what the consumer wants domestic sales will continue to drift downwards, taking the livelihoods of many in the sheep meat food chain with it.

Meat Eating Trends – Beef and Pork Meat Down, Lamb up, Chicken Nearly 50% of All Meat Purchases

From grocery researchers Kantar Worldpanel comes news that after years of plummeting consumption volume sales of lamb grew by 14% in the year ending August 13^th 2013. (Source: BPEX). By contrast pork consumption dropped by 5% and beef by 2%.

The reason is price of course. Over the same period the price of lamb per kilo dropped by 5% to £7.85 per kilo, compared with an increase of 6% for both beef and pork.

Staples like bacon and sausages have suffered from price increases too. The price hikes have led to a  2% drop in bacon sales, and sausage sales are down by 4%. The only other sector to show an increase is sliced cooked meats which grew sales by 1%.

At the same time as these figures were released we heard Andrew Large of the British Poultry Council predicting that by next year chicken will account for over half of all meat eaten, up from just over a third 20years ago.  He attributes the growth in sales to price. In the last two decades he says, chicken prices went up by 31%, whereas beef prices went up by 50% and lamb prices have doubled.

It is easy to over analyse the figures. We can though conclude that price dictates consumers’ buying habits and they readily switch from one type of protein to another. Which means that the price of, say, beef cannot rise in isolation without there being a knock on effect on consumption.

We might also conclude that the image and benefits of red meat, particularly British produced meat, need to be constantly reinforced to consumers. If they felt that red meat was a “must have” then they would bite the bullet and purchase the same quantity regardless of price rises. Yet despite the increase in lamb sales in the last year, the overall volume sold of red meat including bacon and sausages dropped by 2 %. This may seem small, but from a producer perspective a drop in demand is a cause for concern as it all too often leads to oversupply and a consequent fall in farm gate prices. 

Spectacular Increase in Lamb Eating as Supermarkets Cut Prices - But Still a Premium Meat Needing Premium Marketing

Lamb eating in the UK has grown for the first time in over three years. 

According to KantarWorldPanel data for the 12 weeks ending 10^th June volume sales of lamb grew by 16%. This reverses a severe downward trend, with sales at one time looking as if they were in free fall. Indeed, annual sales of fresh and frozen lamb through supermarkets have dropped from around 101,000 tonnes in 2008 to 70,000 tonnes today. (Source: World panel/EBLEX).

Renewed growth is welcome news to sheep farmers for the halcyon days of high lamb prices caused by the weakness of the £ versus the euro are behind us at least for the foreseeable future, and a strong domestic demand is needed to ensure that prices do not fall to unsustainable levels.

Predictably, the main reason for higher consumption is a drop in retail price. In the 12 weeks under review the average price of a kilo of lamb reduced from £8.22p to £8.08p as supermarkets promoted the product over Easter and in the run up to the Jubilee. Sales were also helped by the rocketing price of beef in the shops. The gap between the average price of a kilo of beef versus lamb has narrowed to around £1 a kilo versus £1.92 a year ago.

£8 a kilo is not cheap. Lamb remains a premium priced product out of the reach of many. And there has been sobering news on the premium food front. According to Kantar World panel, sales of supermarket own brand premium ranges, like Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference or Tesco’s Finest, have declined for the first time since 2008. It had seemed that consumers were willing, despite the general price of food rising, to keep buying premium food as long as they felt the quality justified the price. Now they are thinking twice, and in the last 12 weeks sales of premium own brand ranges have dropped by 6%. By contrast, sales of value ranges have soared, up 13%.

Further signs of belt tightening come in the form of below inflation sales through supermarkets – down 0.7% in June 2012 compared with June 2011, and the well documented performance of discounters Aldi and Lidl who continue to grow, up 26% and 11% respectively.

The increase in lamb eating is good news, and it is hoped but not expected that supermarkets will keep the price of lamb at these lower levels to encourage consumption.

What is urgently needed is a total rethink about the way lamb is marketed so that product quality is consistently superb, the type of cuts offered and advice about how to cook them are imaginative and relevant, and lamb becomes a worthwhile buy in the eyes of more consumers.

Warning Call From EBLEX - More Must be Done to Boost Red Meat Consumption

Hard work is needed to keep consumers buying beef and lamb. That is the message coming from EBLEX’s recent conference, and it is an important one. Farm gate prices are strong just now, helped by a reduction in supply from UK farms, a reduction in imports, and a solid export trade due to the weak pound.

UK consumption though is just about stable for beef and dropping like a stone for lamb. Kantar Worldpanel figures show that in the 52 weeks to October 2^nd, people ate 21% less lamb than in the previous year.

So what are the problems? Price is the big one of course. When asked why they do not eat more beef 32% say it is too expensive, and 27% say they cannot afford to. The comparable figures for lamb are 45% and 33%.

We know from other research that price in general has become more of an issue. %. In 2008 34% of consumers claimed to make a shopping list and stick to it. In 2010 this had risen to 44%. In 2008 28% said they worked to a strict budget when buying groceries. That figure now is 40%.

The other main problem on beef is that 17% of consumers think it is not very good for you.

Lamb has its own issues. 57% of consumers agree that lamb can be fatty, and 14% say that too much fat is left on the plate after eating. 15% say there is not enough meat and too much bone to offer value for money.

What can be done to boost red meat consumption?

No one thinks that consumers will become any less price and value conscious in the foreseeable future.

So as Richard Phelps, now of ABP, pointed out at the EBLEX conference, consumers must be given reasons to eat red meat. He believes that, despite continuing pressures on spend, consumers are becoming more adventurous with ingredients and recipes. They are staying in more rather than eating out, and are prepared to buy premium products, mixing these with value lines as budgets allow. So red meat marketers must respond with new cuts and new products.

Phelps says that quality has to improve. He specifically focussed on age of herds, but as anyone who has forked out for a joint of beef and found it tough and tasteless, or left most of their lamb because it was too fatty, much more attention has to be paid to the eating qualities and presentation of red meat. Nick Allen of EBLEX made the quality point also, particularly on lamb where he feels product must improve to combat consumer perceptions of fattiness and poor value.

The final question therefore is who has to take the lead in this. I would suggest it is the processor, ideally with the backing of the supermarket they supply. It is the processor who has the opportunity to set production standards, to reject the over fatty animal, and to ensure that good butchering means consumers get a product they feel is good value for the money spent.

Red Meat Consumption Update - Beef and Pork Steady, Lamb Plummets

Shoppers bought 19% less lamb in the 12 months to mid July 2011 than they did in the previous year. (Source: Kantar Worldpanel)

By contrast, volume sales of beef are up 1%, pork and sausages up 2%, sliced cooked meats up 3%, and bacon up 5%. Overall, purchases of red meat have remained level with last year, indicating perhaps that lamb buyers have migrated to alternative red meat options.

This is perhaps not surprising given that the average price of a kilo of pork is £4.71p, and beef £6.12p, both around what they were last year. The price of a kilo of lamb though has increased by 14%, and now stands at £7.94p, the knock on effect of higher prices being paid to farmers for their live lambs.

Consumers are walking away, put off by having to pay around £5 for a couple of chops, or £13 for a small leg of lamb. Only 22% of people buy lamb every 4 weeks compared with 37% buying pork and 55% buying beef, and when they do buy they buy less – 1kg of lamb compared with 1.5kg for pork, and 1.4kg for beef.

The figures should make those advocating higher retail prices for beef and pork pause for thought. So far, despite the difficult economic climate, sales of these meats have held up well. The question is whether they are sufficiently special to persuade people to buy despite price hikes. Or would demand just fall as it has with lamb? And will a fall in demand lead to oversupply of pigs and cattle, and reduce the price paid to farmers anyway?

Many factors influence prices paid to farmers, and it is difficult to find a clear link between retail prices and those paid at the farm gate. The lamb experience shows that domestic eating of lamb can fall dramatically yet prices paid for live lambs stay buoyant due to external factors like a strong euro, less imports and shrinking breeding flocks. By contrast, when farm gate prices for beef fell sharply last year due mostly to high quantities of dairy beef cattle, retail prices hardly moved at all, and consumption stayed about the same.

What is clear though is that a push too far on price will probably result in big falls in the amount of meat eaten, and  that the fundamentals of supply and demand tend to hold true in the long term. So, if farmgate prices are to remain higher following an increase in retail price in the home market, additional outlets for British cattle and pigs need to be found urgently. Not an easy task.

Premium Food Sales Growing Despite Economic Gloom

Despite the gloomy economic news, and reports of plummeting consumer confidence, people still seem ready to spend on premium quality food.

Kantar Worldpanel, the market data company, tells us that overall grocery sales grew by 5% in the 12 weeks to 26th December 2010, but that sales of premium own label across the 4 big supermarkets grew by 11%, over twice as fast. The Kantar data also shows us that the so called upmarket grocers are doing best, with Sainsbury, Waitrose and Marks and Spencer gaining share whilst low priced ASDA and Morrisons lost share and Tesco only managed to stand still.

Reporting on their performance Sainsbury, who spent nearly £1 billion revamping their premium Taste the Difference Range, said sales of higher priced and ethically sourced products were growing fast, citing free range turkey sales up 30% and smoked salmon up 16%.

Marks and Spencer also mentioned booming sales of turkeys and smoked salmon, whilst Tesco confirmed the trend towards premium food, with sales of “Finest” ham on the bone up 50%, “Finest” party foods up 90% and “Finest” wines up 100%.

Less spectacular, but nevertheless welcome, beef sales in the 12 weeks to end December grew by 4% in both volume and value after months of virtually static sales.

Undoubtedly there will be a Christmas effect in these numbers. Shoppers traditionally splash out during the festive season. But these are comparable figures with Christmas last year, and presumably people were feeling festive then, so the big growth in premium sales does seem to be a trend rather than a one off.

Whether the trend will continue is another question, as the effects of government cuts put further pressure on disposable incomes.

The difference between now and a couple of years ago when the credit crunch first happened and shoppers flocked to discount supermarkets and grocery value ranges is that then, the worry of economic hardship was greater than the reality. The reality now is that money will become tighter, and we may yet see down trading in food. On the other hand it could be that people have tried the value route and it does not meet their needs, at least all of the time.

The Institute of Grocery Distribution is of the view that shoppers will not trade down if it means compromising on quality or values. Rather, people will be more careful about how they shop and prepare food. 36% of us are already trying to reduce food and packaging waste, say the IGD, and 22% are going back to a simpler diet, cooking uncomplicated meals and cutting out unnecessary add ons. This perhaps means higher sales of top quality staple foods.

One high priced staple that shows no sign of growing is lamb. In the 12 weeks to end December 2010, lamb consumption dropped by 17% in volume and 6% in value. It is no good arguing that Christmas is not a big lamb eating time. The point is that these figures are compared with the same period in 2009, The only conclusion to be drawn is that the lamb eating experience does not justify its high price, and that lamb is becoming less and less relevant to the meat eating public.

Why the consumer is buying less lamb – insight from EBLEX shows it’s not just about price

This year consumers have bought 6% less lamb than last, and the decline seems to be speeding up. In the last 12 weeks consumers bought 11% less lamb than they did in the same period last year.

These are scary numbers and the pessimist might envisage a time not very far away when consumer demand for lamb is about half of its current level, with a similar fall in demand for livestock.

A recent EBLEX report gives clues about why lamb is out of favour, and what can be done to reverse the drop.

The 500 meat eating women interviewed each quarter by EBLEX say that the main reason they don’t buy lamb as much as other proteins like chicken, beef or pork is that lamb is too expensive.

So far so predictable many might think. But price is not the whole story. What makes people buy anything, even the very highest priced products, is their perception of whether the product in question is good value for money, and most cuts of lamb are seen as “not at all good”, or “not very good” value. The exception is lamb mince which is just about neutral – neither good nor bad.

All sorts of factors come into the value equation, and compared with other proteins lamb is rated worse on versatility, on ease of cooking, and especially on fat content. 57% of people say lamb “can be fatty” compared with 46% for pork, 28% for beef, and 5% for poultry.

Lamb falls down on other health aspects. Consumers feel that lamb is not as protein rich as beef, and do not realise it is as good a source of vitamins and minerals as beef.

The one positive point is that consumers view lamb as a tasty food.

So what should be done?

Lamb needs to be given an image makeover. EBLEX suggests that its versatility and health benefits need to be promoted. To this could be added using imagination to present unpopular cuts such as shoulder in a better way. One supermarket for example sells shoulder chops – butchered in a way that ensures they are just as tender as from the leg, but around half the price, and far less time consuming than cooking a roast.

Producers could focus even harder on reducing the number of over fat lambs sent into the food chain, and processors and producers together might find ways of ensuring that the product is consistently of high quality when it reaches the consumer, which is not always the case at the moment.

The EBLEX findings are important to all in the lamb supply chain. A strong home market forms the backbone of the sector, cushioning participants from the ups and downs of exports, and from the ebb and flow of lamb supply.It is critical to ensuring a consistently profitable future.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Falling Lamb Consumption - Thoughts from Sheep 2010

There was standing room only for the session on marketing at last week's NSA event where farmer Geoffrey Probert, May Hill representative Henry Dunn, Remi Fourrier from EBLEX, and Steve McClean of Marks and Spencer discussed a variety of issues.

The problem of plummeting lamb eating in the home market was addressed, and the general concensus was that quality is fine, its all about price.

For Remi Fourrier, who is responsible for growing British lamb sales to France from it current one in 5 lambs produced, the main issue is encouraging younger people to eat lamb, and that ways had to be found to make lamb more convenient to cook.

Henry Dunn, representing May Hill who sell to Sainsbury, pointed to the success of Cotswold Lamb which he feels works because it has a strong provenance story. Consumers like the idea of knowing where their lamb has come from and how it was produced. Steve McClean agreed. Marks and Spencer shoppers are interested in provenance too, and increasingly in the impact of products on the environment. M&S are planning to add more environmental compliance measures into the standards it requires from producers.

All mentioned that consumers of ethnic origin eat large quantities of sheep meat - a figure of 27% was quoted, but all recognised the sensitivity of slaughter procedures required by some.

Returning to the quality issue, there were a couple of comments about grass fed lamb producing a top quality product. This was considered to be one of the reasons behind New Zealand lamb's good and consistent quality. Marks and Spencer source from NZ in our winter, and aim for grass fed lamb in summer for this reason. As Mr. McClean said "It's all about ensuring consumers have a good eating experience when they buy lamb".

So no silver bullets emerged from the debate.

As a firm believer that, whatever the product, price is a problem if the quality does not match up, I was surprised that quality and consistency of lamb did not get more of an airing.

A look at WorldPanel numbers supplied by BPEX shows that in the 12 weeks to July 11th, lamb sales dropped by a further 8%. So the problem of what to do about falling lamb sales is not going away.

British Lamb – Premium Price But Not a Premium Eating Experience

I’m still obsessed with the state of the lamb market.

The British are falling out of love with eating lamb, and sooner or later when the £ sterling gets stronger and exports fall off, it will have a knock on effect on producer lamb prices. In the last twelve months, according to figures published by the British Pig Executive (BPEX), people ate 8% less lamb than the year before, and whilst the pace of decline has slowed to a drop of 4% in the last twelve weeks, this contrasts with a growth of 4% for beef and 3% for pork. So whilst beef and pork are seeing consumers come back into the market there is no sign of the same for lamb.

So what is the problem?

Price is not helping of course. At £6.79 pence per kilo on average, lamb sells for about 80p a kilo more than beef and over £2 a kilo more than pork, and it would be easy to park it there and hope that somehow everything will come right again as consumers emerge from recessionary buying habits and start spending.

Apart from price, there is an issue of age. Lamb is bought primarily by the over 40’s, and Sam Pearl, chilled meat buyer from Tesco speaking to lamb producers in New Zealand, talked about the need to be innovative in the way lamb is presented to encourage younger buyers.

Certainly the supermarkets try to promote lamb. Sainsbury sells a range of lamb from different parts of the country. Tesco advertises in magazines. Booths, a small but very successful supermarket in the north and Sainsbury focus on breeds, Blackface in the case of Sainsbury and Herdwick in Booths.

Which leads us to the product itself and the biggest issue of all - lamb is a premium priced product but all too often it fails to deliver a premium eating experience. When shelling out £15 a kilo for chops or around £10 for a leg of lamb the product needs to be consistently superb otherwise people will be disappointed and refuse to buy again. Indeed, the BPEX data shows that less and less people are buying lamb.

Tracking down how best to improve lamb quality is not easy. Supermarkets send out mixed messages about lamb. Take seasonality. Except for a bit of Dorset lamb on their loose meat counter Waitrose holds fast to the principle of New Zealand in winter and UK sourced in summer. Tesco advertises that NZ is tenderest in spring, the south west and Wales in summer, and Northern England for Christmas, and Morrisons sticks to British all year round.

Then there’s age. EBLEX’s scientific work tells us that older, heavier lambs are tougher. Yet provided older carcasses are matured for at least 7 days, the lamb can be given the EBLEX quality mark. EBLEX also says that older ram lambs can develop off flavours. But over in NZ the Alliance farmers cooperative has done scientific work which concludes that this is not so.

Whilst there are some examples of growth in lamb sales, Tesco for example claiming that their sales have gone up by 12% because of promotions and encouraging new buyers, the main message is one of decline. So we must conclude that the issue with lamb goes deeper than an ageing consumer profile and a lack of excitement in its marketing.

One indisputable fact though is that consumers’ biggest complaint is about lamb is fattiness. Despite this, according to HCC, the Welsh meat executive, nearly 30% of lambs sold are fatter than R3L, and even after trimming by the processor, a lot of fat remains both around and within the meat. Could the time have come to tighten fat class standards further?

How irritated must consumers be, as I was, to buy two small chops for £5 yet find that nearly half is fat.

Whatever the answer, the total supply chain has to re-examine the issue of quality otherwise the market will move from niche to non existent.

UK Lamb Market - Farmgate Prices Strong, Yet Amount Eaten Plummeting. Should We Be Worried?

To the relief of farmers across the land, farmgate prices for lamb remain firm. Eblex (the English Beef and Lamb Executive) attributes this to the strong euro boosting exports, and a reduction in UK sheep numbers. Eblex forecasts that the euro will continue relatively strong, lamb numbers will fall in the UK, Ireland and France, and good prices will probably continue.

The one cloud on this bright horizon is the effect high lamb prices are having on the amount people eat. Farmgate prices for lamb over the twelve weeks to end July rose by around 12% compared with last year, the average price in the shops rose by 17% and the amount that people bought fell by 15%. This compares with a fall of 5% for beef and level sales for pork, both of which have been hit by higher prices and consumer cutbacks because of the recession, although not nearly to the same extent.

The drop in lamb sales is startling, although not surprising. The shopper is now paying an average of £7.15p per kilo for lamb versus £6.22p for beef, £5.10p for pork and £4.02p for chicken. No wonder that fewer people are choosing lamb. All cuts are affected particularly roasting joints.

The question is where it will all end? What happens if the euro falls back, flock numbers increase as farmers, attracted by higher prices dip a toe in the water again, yet consumers lose the lamb buying habit, and there is little demand for lamb either at home or abroad.

The obvious solution is for supermarkets to slash the price when farmgate prices fall, and get people buying again. History would say though, that prices in supermarkets do not come down nearly as quickly as they go up, as we saw during the foot and mouth crisis.

If supermarkets don’t support the market who might? This could be an opportunity for butchers to become very price competitive, and attract customers with a banner comparing their prices to the local supermarket. It’s also an opportunity for the catering trade who sell disproportionately more lamb than supermarkets, and for direct sellers. The trouble as always is that supermarkets are so big they do dictate market trends.

The easy conclusion is that we should be worried about people eating much less lamb, as it is bound to have an effect on prices, perhaps not next year but soon enough. The harder bit will be working out how to reignite the lamb buying habit.

Note: Farm gate prices based on Farmers Weekly data, and consumption on Taylor Nelson Sofres data, published by BPEX.