Livestock marts play an integral part in ensuring traceability within the meat supply chain, often providing that link between farmers and butchers or processors.

We encourage farmers and butchers to use the local live rings when looking to trade livestock, as there are multiple benefits – including short supply chains, transparent pricing, seeing what you’re buying and talking to sellers.

Shorter supply chains mean consistency and food security, according to Grant Macpherson, MD at Dingwall and Highland Marts

“Traceability is a big part of what we do and our ethos is to source as much as we can locally – our Drovers Rest Café beef and lamb have been through our sales ring previously. So it’s a very short supply chain.

“Similarly, the local abattoir, John M Munro, is just two miles from the mart and has its own butchers shops throughout the Highlands. The current generation, Charlie Munro, has representatives at our ringside every Tuesday to buy livestock, and the abattoir has been doing so for 100 years. Most weeks they buy a up to a couple of hundred lambs and 20 cattle.

“Being in the Highlands, it’s very important that outlying customers on the islands and mainland can come to us. Their livestock may be coming across the sea, but it will be direct and with a small number of links in the chain – it’s certainly a lot closer than the beef and lamb that’s going to be coming from Australia soon!

“Shorter supply chains also mean consistency of supply and food security – something the UK learnt the hard way during the pandemic. But lots of local people seem to have taken this on board,” said Mr Macpherson.

For butcher Charlie Munro, of John M Munro, traceability is vital, while provenance is the whole back-story. “We have six retail stores through-out the Inverness and Ross-shire areas, and buy our livestock direct from Dingwall for a number of reasons – tradition, convenience, supporting our farming community, lowering food miles, and decades of co-operation, relationship, communication and service.

“Traceability falls into place alongside these benefits as a ‘happy coincidence’, but nevertheless a vital part of our offering to customers. While it enables us to provide physical evidence of an animal’s history and background and to correctly label our meats, ‘provenance’ is the key.

“Provenance is the whole back-story – it tells of the breeding/feeding regime, of our farmer suppliers’ lifetimes preparing and nurturing their stock, of breed lines and herd management, of the caring and passion that goes into rearing the best livestock to ultimately produce the best of meats,” said Mr Munro.

For John Kyle, MD at Caledonian Marts, Stirling, auction plays it role in traceability by recording every movement. He said: “About 8-10 butchers and 10 wholesalers come to our Thursday sale each week. There is complete traceability from farm to mart, mart to abattoir, abattoir to butcher/processor, and then consumers.

“The smallest butchers buy maybe one animal a week, but the bigger butchers buy perhaps up to 10 livestock. Their radius ranges from one to 40 miles, so it’s very local. We find that the butchers go for the better end of cattle in the ring.

“Traceability is important to us and the mart plays its part by recording every movement of cattle and sheep, and reporting this to ScotEID. I think the amount of traceability in place is more than adequate.”

That is also important to Brian Ross, market manager at Lawrie and Symington, Lanark “We sell quite a lot of lamb and prime cattle direct to about 10-11 local butchers who buy regularly from us.

“They come and bid around the ring with the other buyers, which means they can talk to the farmers they’re buying from and find out more about how the animals were fed, and finished – you can’t get more traceable than that.

“Butchers look for the quality article, and quite often they buy from the same seller because they want that consistency of quality. This also allows the farmer to ask the butcher what their last animal was like, how it was as a carcase.

“Being able to provide a consistent quality piece of beef or lamb in their butchers shop is key and that’s the huge advantage of buying through the ring,” he said.

It’s just as important for the butchers too: “I know what I’m buying and what I’m getting buying at the mart,” said Hugh Black, of Hugh Black and Sons Butchers.

“We’ve got 12 retail shops, including in Stirling, South Lanarkshire, West Lothian, and Fife, and buy all our cattle from Lanark and St Boswells on Mondays, and Caledonian mart on Thursdays. I personally go to Lanark and Caledonian every week, and have a rep at St Boswells.

“Not all butchers do it, as not everyone knows livestock in this way, but it’s a great chance to meet the farmers and saves money by cutting out a link in the chain.

“I feel part of the community at the marts and often buy from the same farmers. I know that the marts draw some real specialists in beef finishing, who hand-pick their animals, knowing that high-street butchers will be interested. The quality can be very good.

“It helps me control my supply chain and I can also choose the breed, age, size etc of the animal for consistency.

“Customers don’t ask much about where the meat comes from, but that’s because they take it for granted that it’s local – we have a board up in every shop that says which farms the animals have come from that week. People are definitely buying more local since Covid, and it's growing,” he added.