Meat news
Look out for British lamb bargain buys
The impact of foot-and-mouth disease is continuing to have a volatile effect on the price, choice and supply sources of lamb.
The cull on farms affected by foot-and-mouth has reduced the number of animals coming to market in affected localised areas under livestock movement control, but the export ban on UK-produced lamb enforced by the EU has meant that in the UK as a whole, supplies of lamb are not only being maintained, but prices of UK-produced lamb are depressed.
This has resulted in the UK becoming a less attractive market for overseas exporters to the UK of lamb because of unfavourable market prices. The glut of UK lamb now coming to market has led to a lowering of imports of new season lamb, 80% of which comes from New Zealand.
The bargain buys in British lamb in the next couple of months are going to be the smaller sheep which graze in the summer on uplands and are normally destined for export for secondary processing. Unless a home market can be found for these small lambs, they will be culled.
The Welsh Development Agency has earmarked £600,000 for the marketing of Welsh light lambs, which could result in some attractive price deals.
Salmonella CASES in poultry at lowest level
Salmonella contamination in chicken has dropped to the lowest level ever recorded. Last year, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) announced a plan to reduce chicken contamination by 50% in five years.
At the time of the announcement, salmonella contamination stood at 20% of all birds sold. The FSA said that 12 months after the drive to reduce poultry infection, the figure has fallen to 5.8% of all poultry sold.
But there is still a lot of work to be done in tackling the campylobacter bug in chicken meat, according to the FSA.
Joint promotion As part of the promotion to market light lambs, the leading farming journal Farmers Weekly has joined forces with Farmers First, the meat producer marketing initiative, to offer ready-butchered half-lambs (net weight 6kg) at £35 and full lambs (net weight 12kg) at £65.
The boxes are packed in ice packs and sent by courier. for further information and orders, call 0870 2410153.
You can now send new product or supplier news to our e-mail address: chot@rbi.co.uk
