FARMER-LED shelf watching has revealed a divide in support for Scottish-produced lamb amongst the nation’s supermarkets.

Over a ten-day period, NFU Scotland members and staff have been secretly noting the availability of lamb with Scottish country of origin labelling in over 50 Scottish supermarket stores. Around 2500 packs of lamb were counted, and results revealed that almost 45% of the lamb available was branded with Scotch Lamb PGI, with an additional 44% labelled as British or Welsh.

The shelf watch was conducted right in the middle of peak production season, when plentiful amounts of domestic lamb is available – however, ASDA and Tesco were still found to be importing some lamb from New Zealand, with the former not selling any Scottish origin lamb at all.

Of the 598 lamb packs recorded in ASDA Stores in Edinburgh, Ayr and Aberdeen, zero Scottish packs were found, 368 carried British labelling and 240 were imported from New Zealand.

680 packs were counted from Tesco with 403 carrying Scotch lamb labelling, 233 with British branding, however 44 packs were imported from New Zealand.

In contrast, its competitors Aldi and Lidl, which have pledged to source exclusively Scottish lamb, were indeed found with 100% Scottish lamb in over 300 products recorded.

NFUS livestock committee chairman Charlie Adam commented: “These shelf watch results show that support for Scottish and UK lamb producers is strong from a number of retailers, providing confidence to the sector. Indeed, six out of the nine supermarket chains that we visited were stocking only lamb produced in Scotland or the UK.

“While the majority of the lamb was home-produced it was disappointing to see that ASDA and Waitrose had no lamb labelled as Scottish available,” he continued. “In particular, ASDA is way off the mark with competitors – stocking hundreds of packs of imported lamb at a time when Scottish lamb producers are busy finishing their stock. NFUS will raise this issue directly with ASDA in the coming days,” he promised.

Mr Adam was optimistic that the majority of lamb recorded in the Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Lidl and Aldi stores carried a Scotch Lamb PGI label; a positive sign for the sector amidst the uncertainty over Brexit.

In response to the shelf watch findings, a spokesperson from ASDA replied: “We always look to offer our customers value and choice and are proud to stock a great range of Scottish lamb in our stores.” ASDA insisted that their stores stock lamb produce which carry the Scottish flag and the Scotch Lamb PGI mark.

This latest shelf watch comes a week after the announcement from Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon that the Scottish Government is to commit to spend an additional £200,000 on Scotch Lamb PGI promotion.

Mr Adam added: “The First Minister’s funding announcement from last week for additional promotion of Scotch Lamb PGI is very welcome. NFUS is looking forward to the launch of Quality Meat Scotland’s new promotional campaign for Scotch Lamb PGI.”