Sainsbury to promote Welsh hill lamb products

Six new Welsh hill lamb products are being sold by 331 Sainsbury stores across England and Wales.


Stuart Wright, the supermarket giant’s chief lamb buyer, announced the launch of “Taste the Difference Welsh Lamb” at the Welsh Winter Fair in Builth Wells.


Visitors to the event also had their first opportunity to see new packaging, which will soon carry a profile of a typical producer.


“Welsh lamb has a very strong brand image, but consumers want to associate what they are eating with the region and farm that produced it,” Mr Wright said.


“We will be featuring David Williams of Maes-Y-Nant, Llanfair Caereinion in Powys.”


He said the pilot sales campaign would run for the next few weeks, during which high-quality, light Welsh hill lambs would be available, and again next season.


The 13-15kg carcasses of lambs produced by many hill farms were ideal for processing products for people who did not want larger, more expensive joints.


Included were hand-trimmed French rack of lamb, hand-trimmed cutlets and lamb chops, chump joints with pesto topping, loin chops with garden pea and mint topping and lamb with goat’s cheese and red pepper relish.


“The launch has gone extremely well and we will use 2000 lambs this week processed by Oriel Jones and Son at Llanybyther,” said Mr Wright.


This would bring the company’s procurement of lamb processed in Wales to 23,000 head a week.