That is because New Zealand is ideally suited to sheep farming. Growing up nearly all lamb was from New Zealand in pre EEC days. Because it was of exceptional quality and reasonably priced. Regarding climate change and emissions I was watching a programme about those mammoth container ships. Due to economy of scale there was less pollution per container caused by shipping them all the way from China than caused per container by the lorries transporting them onwards in this country. No doubt the same would apply to shipments from New Sealand.
There are parts of this country also ideally suited to growing sheep. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-51190051
Yes, but at the time they couldn’t meet the demand or compare on price. That is why we imported lamb, and beef, from the other side of the world.
You have NZ lamb in the UK because demand outstrips domestic supply and as the UK food industry is extremely price sensitive, it's not in the interest of domestic producers to raise their prices too much, as they can in Norway, for example.
Last year, imports of lamb (primarily from New Zealand) dropped from 70,490 tonnes, to 57,027, while exports of British lamb increased from 73,955 tonnes, to 85,960 tonnes (total UK production in 2019 was 307,500 tonnes, it seems we're now fairly big in the lamb game).
The weak pound has played a huge role in this. As the majority of UK lamb exports go to the EU, so a Brexit deal is essential for many UK farmers.
Seasonal timing and because Brits prefer leg cuts, the EU/mainly France prefer carcasses. I'm not a farmer but live on land used for sheep farming, so know a little about the economics.
does that mean you're a sheep? I didn't know about the cut preference actually, makes more sense in that case
Asians buy a lot of cuts like Lamb shoulder ! It's used a lot for curries and kebabs . You may already know this Den !
No, I work in on-shore/off-shore construction, but have grazing land that I 'rent' to a neighbouring farmer.
Absolutely, cultural food preferences plays a huge part in exports/imports. Brits like large meaty chops, the Spanish and Chinese like small ones with large bone quantity, as they consider the flavour to be better. Similar discrepancies in the farmed fish industry - Asian markets pay a huge premium on larger fish and also consider fatty salmon (the grey meat) to be a luxury, whereas European markets don't like the stronger taste and texture. These all contribute why countries import and export the same product.
You have it bang on mate . I used to be a Butcher in the 80s and people ate more of the meat like Lamb and also rolled pork shoulder then. They tend to taste better because of the higher fat content . Seems to be more a need for ultra lean stuff now that doesn't have the same satisfactory taste to me .
Can't beat a lamb shoulder cooked for about 6 hours, my mouth's watering just thinking about it. Sorry about this Den... please log in to view this image
Cut meat and dairy intake 'by a fifth', report urges So if a fifth of the population goes vegan, the rest of us can carry on as normal
It's estimated that 7% of British people are vegan and 14% are vegetarian, so we're probably sorted already.
