The latest animal feed production data from AHDB suggests that the adverse weather pushed up feed production for lambs at the start of 2018. Growing and finishing sheep feed production increased by 14% (36,300t) on the year during the first six months of 2018, to 287,900t. Breaking this down into the quarters, between January and March, production totalled 157,900t, an 8% increase year-on-year (11,100t). Subsequently during April, May and June production recorded even larger increases, at 35%, 17% and 18% respectively, compared to 2017 levels.

Half of homes buy lamb

In recent figures released by Kantar market research 54.7% of UK households have bought lamb in the last year. This comes as the total spend on lamb in supermarkets fell nearly 2% in the last 12 months.

Shoppers buying lamb were purchasing it less often than previous years with a near 6% reduction in occasions. Each trip to buy lamb was more expensive with cuts costing around 4% more but shoppers bought 2% less volume, indicating they were turned off by the price.

Defra’s estimate of total sheepmeat supply in the UK for 2017 shows a 5.7% decline. While home production rose by 3%, this was more than offset by the combination of a 13.1% fall in imports and a 13.7% increase in exports. Imports accounted for 32.9% of total market supply, down from 35.6% in 2016 and a 2013-17 average of 35.9%. Meanwhile, exports were equivalent to 33.5% of home production, up from 30.4% in the previous year, but still lower than the five-year average of 34.2%.