The latest NFU Scotland shelf watch study has found record volumes of Scotch Lamb available on Scottish supermarket shelves.

Photo: Richard Eaton.

Photo: Richard Eaton.

The study found that Scotch Lamb was widely stocked across the majority of large supermarket chains, including 100% of all lamb sold in Lidl and Aldi stores surveyed being Scottish.

Overall out of 850 packs of lamb inspected on supermarket shelves, less than 3% was found to be imported, with home produced lamb – labelled as either Scotch or British – accounting for over 97% of sales.

NFU Scotland Livestock Committee chairman, Charlie Adam, commented: “Scottish shoppers want to buy tasty Scotch Lamb and these results demonstrate the positive progress that is being made in making Scotch Lamb more widely available in Scottish supermarkets.

“Scotch Lamb continues to be exclusively available in Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl all year round and that is welcome support for our farmers and crofters.”

Adam also noted the significant improvement in the amount of Scotch Lamb on sale in Tesco in comparison to previous shelf watch results.

“The substantial increase in the amount of Scotch lamb available in the Tesco stores surveyed is noteworthy and reassuring as peak season approaches,” he said.

“While the majority of fresh lamb being sold in Asda and Waitrose in Scotland was produced in the UK, it was hard to find any which was labelled as Scotch. We would like to see more done by these supermarket chains to ensure Scotch Lamb is available and clearly labelled in Scottish stores.

“Overall, to find that 97% of the lamb in Scottish supermarket stores is home-produced, with the vast majority labelled as Scotch, is a fantastic boost to the Scottish sheep sector at the busiest time of the year. It provides a fantastic platform from which to encourage all retailers to build their commitment to Scotch.”

NFU Scotland’s shelf watch surveyed a total of 14 supermarket stores, across Scotland, looking at fresh lamb offerings, apart from offal.

This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.

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