The sheep industry is being urged to come together to promote home-produced lamb during Love Lamb Week 2016.
The week, which is being supported by AHDB Beef & Lamb and the National Sheep Association (NSA), takes place from 1 to 7 September 2016.
Launched last year by Cumbrian sheep farmer Rachel Lumley, Love Lamb Week is a great opportunity to encourage consumers to get cooking with this tasty and versatile meat.
Driven by farmers, Love Lamb Week 2015 gained support across the industry, catching the attention of the national press and broadcast media and getting interest from top chefs.
The objective for the event is to create opportunities for the whole supply chain to get involved and stimulate demand for home-produced lamb when production is at its peak.
Love Lamb Week will also mark the start of AHDB’s lamb keema campaign, which will involve PR and social media activity as well as on-pack labelling.
The campaign aims to introduce consumers to lamb mince in the form of versatile and tasty keema as an easy, low-cost route in to eating lamb.
Once consumers develop a taste for keema, the aim is then to encourage them to move to using higher-value lamb cuts.
The broader sheep farming community is also being encouraged to get involved either by organising an event in their local area or helping to get the messages out on social media.
Grass-roots campaign
AHDB Beef & Lamb sector strategy director Laura Ryan said: "Love Lamb Week is an excellent grass-roots campaign which really gives the industry something to get behind in order to promote home-produced lamb.
"By working together with the NSA, we aim to build on the success of last year and make Love Lamb Week 2016 even more engaging.
"The tie-in with our keema activity will really help amplify the impact of Love Lamb Week and ensure that we get our messages out to as many consumers as possible."
NSA chief executive Phil Stocker said: "Love Lamb Week is a fantastic initiative to increase positive interest in sheep farming and encourage consumption of lamb.
"The NSA will be very active over the coming weeks in encouraging farmers to get involved by hosting or supporting events in their area, and to spread the message on social media.
"We are delighted to be taking this leading role in supporting co-ordinated activity.
"Love Lamb Week will not only be an opportunity to highlight much of the existing lamb promotional activity, but also provide an ideal platform to bring farmers, businesses and consumers together in raising the profile of British lamb during its peak season."
