Turkey at Christmas, haggis on Burns Night – our most important days are usually celebrated with special dishes, and meat is often central.

But what about Scotland’s national day, St Andrew’s Day, on November 30? Nothing much comes to mind. In a country with so much high quality home-grown produce, something seems amiss.

As auctioneers, we want to change this. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be joining arms through a country-wide campaign to put Scotch lamb – itself an under-celebrated national speciality – at the centre of every meal on St Andrew’s Day.

Auction marts up and down the country will be donating whole lambs to encourage those in our communities to celebrate, get a taste for lamb, and make its enjoyment part of an annual tradition.

Everyone is welcome – from restaurants and schools, to sports clubs and even neighbours banding together. Of course, celebrations this year will look a lot different to usual, but we hope people can still celebrate safely within the allowed restrictions.

As part of the campaign, we are calling on you – our 30,000 farming customers – to help spread the word in your communities. Each mart will be running a social media campaign, so please get involved digitally and encourage businesses and members of the public to get in touch with their local auction mart about sourcing a lamb.

Of course, we are not doing this alone – the campaign is a join effort between members of The Institute of Auctioneers and Appraisers in Scotland (IAAS); the National Farmers Union Scotland (NFUS); Quality Meat Scotland (QMS); and the National Sheep Association Scotland (NSAS).

As part of the drive, QMS has developed a range of recipes with a celebrity chef, which will be shared over social media and around auction marts. These will be available on the IAAS website – so please use and share these.

Last year, United Auctions and local farmers gave away 50 lambs to organisations, sports clubs, hotels, restaurants, and schools, to promote the campaign. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and we hope to build on this. We knew rugby clubs would get involved but we were really pleased to have schools, scouts and local rural organisations too.

My son’s scouts’ club had a lamb curry on their camp-out, slow-cooked for 16 hours by a local chef – he and his friends said it was the best lamb they’d ever had. Others learnt that they liked a meat they had tried little before.

At the local high school, pupils produced three lamb recipes, with great support from the head mistress who saw its potential for food education. Hotels and restaurants also took part with special St Andrew’s Day menus – something many have said they will do again this year.

We are delighted that already, two local high schools have already accepted our offer to supply lamb to their food studies department, which will be invaluable in terms of widening pupils’ experiences, promoting healthy eating of local produce and also of course, forging important partnerships between the schools and their local auction mart.

There’s not been much to celebrate the last few months, but we can still come together in our community and give people the chance to celebrate our national day with great Scottish produce.