Union encouraged by support for Scottish lamb
As part of the Easter Lamb Shelf Watch, National Farmers’ Union (NFU) Scotland secret shoppers have found that the majority of Scottish supermarkets are stocking home-produced lamb.
More than 3,000 packs of lamb on supermarket shelves were examined over recent days and almost 80% were Scottish or British – a marked improvement on Easter 2017.
The shelf watch has indicated that shoppers should be able to find Scottish lamb available in most major supermarket chains ahead of the Easter weekend. However, no Scottish lamb was identified in the aisles of Asda and Waitrose stores visited.
Having previously made commitments to go 100% home-produced, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Aldi and Co-op were found to be honouring their commitment. Nominal volumes of organic New Zealand lamb were found in Marks & Spencer stores.
NFU Scotland president Andrew McCornick said: “With Scotland’s sheep producers approaching peak lambing season, it is a boost to see Scottish retailers bolstering their support for Scottish produce.
“Today’s results back up our belief that the season for home-produced lamb availability could be extended with retailer support, and we recognise the efforts being made by Aldi, Co-op, Marks & Spencer and Morrisons.
“It is disappointing however to see Sainsbury’s, the UK’s second largest retailer, stocking more than 50% imported product, and it’s also disappointing to see no lamb labelled as Scottish available in any of the Asda stores visited.
“We will continue to work with retailers to see what more can be done to support domestic food, and we will ask them to work with us to secure necessary farm support following Brexit to allow sustainable food production.”
A Waitrose spokesperson told Meat Management: “Our customers tell us they like lamb which is tender and in season – the vast majority of British lambs have only just been born and no retailer can get sufficient volume of new season UK lamb for Easter. Therefore outside the traditional British season we use selected farmers in New Zealand who farm to our own high welfare standards. We are confident this approach means customers buy our lamb again and again because of the consistent quality we achieve. This means that we strongly overtrade, selling twice as much British lamb as you’d expect for a supermarket of our size. Over the past year, 72% of the fresh lamb sold in Waitrose was British. Waitrose has just over 5% of the UK grocery market overall, but a 10% share of the British lamb market, which means we are punching well above our weight.”
A Sainsbury’s spokesperson added: “We work closely with our sheep farmers to sell as much Scotch lamb as we possibly can.”
Meat Management has contacted Asda for comment and is awaiting a response.
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