A six-week industry campaign encouraging consumers to eat more lamb has generated an additional £2.45m in sales, new data has revealed.
The campaign 'Make it Lamb' focused on promoting the meat's versatility and ease of cooking, and came as new season lamb entered the market.
It focused on the promotion of fresh, local lamb cuts to stimulate demand when cooking at home.
The £440,000 initiative – which ran in July and August – included radio sponsorship on Heart FM, print and digital advertising.
The activity generated a return of £5.59 in retail sales for every £1 spent on the activity and 261 tonnes of additional fresh lamb.
Alongside this, the campaign drove an additional 272,000 shoppers to purchase the meat.
The campaign was a collective effort between Quality Meat Scotland (QMS), AHDB England and Hybu Cig Cymru (HCC) – Meat Promotion Wales.
The cross-channel mix of promotions reached 74% of British households and resulted in over half a million visits to the industry bodies’ consumer websites.
A statement from the levy boards said that supporting the UK’s sheep sector was 'now more important than ever'.
“We’re really pleased with the results from our collaborative campaign promoting locally sourced lamb," the organisations said.
"We’re confident that the positive results leaving lamb top of mind for dinner inspiration will have carried over into autumn as we moved into Septembers Love Lamb Week.
“We will continue to do all we can to stimulate demand for lamb cuts, given the uncertainty around trade deals and with Brexit on the horizon.”
The ‘Make it Lamb’ campaign built on the success of its predecessor ‘Make it Steak’, which saw a beef revenue growth of almost £10 million across Britain.
