Supermarkets honour their pledge

Supermarket efforts to stock homeproduced lamb in the run-up to Easter have been praised by farmers’ union NFU Scotland.

However, Asda and Waitrose have come under fire after the union’s secret shoppers failed to find any Scottish lamb in the stores they visited.

As part of its annual Easter Lamb Shelf Watch, the union’s shoppers examined 3,032 packs of lamb on shelves in 48 supermarkets across Scotland.

The survey, which took place between March 20-27, found that 77% of the lamb on offer was of Scottish or British origin. This is up from a figure of 44% last year.

It found that 41% of the lamb was Scottish, 36% was British and 23% was imported.

Supermarkets which previously made commitments to stock 100% homeproduced lamb in Scotland – Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Aldi and the Co-op, were found to be honouring their pledges.

The only exception was a small amount of organic New Zealand lamb found in Marks and Spencer stores.

“With Scotland’s sheep producers approaching peak lambing season, it is a boost to see Scottish retailers bolstering their support for Scottish produce,” said NFUS president Andrew McCornick.

“Today’s results back up our belief that the season for home-produced lamb availability could be extended with retailer support, and we recognise the efforts being made by Aldi, Co-op, Marks and Spencer and Morrisons.”

He criticised Sainsbury’s – the UK’s second largest retailer – for stocking more than 50% imported product, and said it was disappointing that none of the Asda stores visited had any lamb on offer which was labelled as Scottish.