Supermarket lamb overwhelmingly Scotch, NFUS survey shows

The NFU Scotland’s (NFUS) Shelf Watch scheme shows 97% of lamb surveyed on Scottish supermarket shelves was either Scotch or British.

Of the 850 packs of lamb in the study, just 3% were imported from New Zealand.

The figures represent the results of a successful campaign by NFUS, which has encouraged supermarkets to extend the season in which they buy Scotch lamb.

See also: Lamb price dips on seasonal trend

Union members and staff who acted as secret shoppers found that 100% of the lamb in Aldi and Lidl was Scotch or British, with Tesco making a marked improvement on previous Shelf Watch results.

“Scottish shoppers want to buy tasty Scotch lamb”, said NFU Scotland livestock committee chairman Charlie Adam.

“These results demonstrate the positive progress that is being made in making Scotch lamb more widely available in Scottish supermarkets.

He added, “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 labelled Scotch.

“We would like to see more done by these supermarket chains to ensure Scotch lamb is available and clearly labelled in Scottish stores.”

The positive results are timely as Scotland’s lamb sales approach peak season and #LoveLambWeek starts on 1 September, encouraging consumers to buy and cook home-produced lamb.

The UK is the globes third-largest exporter of lamb behind New Zealand and Australia, shipping 40% of UK production overseas.