While foot and mouth disease has been largely demoted from the front pages of the national media, it continues to cast its shadow over the whole of the industry.
Some relaxation of livestock movements were announced by DEFRA last week, notably the declaration that Scotland is now officially disease-free.
But the problems of finding homes for 1.6 million to 1.7 million lambs about half of which fall into the "light" category still remains.
The Meat and Livestock Commission is continuing to pin its faith on a revamped "Tim Nice But Dim" ad campaign, currently costing £2.7m, with the confident prediction that the government will match this pound for pound. But there is a growing acceptance that there is a need to "think out of the box" to achieve real success.
New product creation is at the heart of this thinking, but there is an element of desperation or even despair in the Sainsbury campaign which offers a pack of lamb sausages with certain lamb promotions. Lamb burgers were given a firm thumbs down by consumers when they were launched and there is nothing to suggest that sausages will be any more successful.
Regional product promotions, such as Welsh mountain lamb or West Country lamb, operated by Safeway, offer a better chance of positive consumer response, in line with market research which suggests consumer sympathy with the plight of their local primary producers.
Similarly, changes in market specifications demanded by supermarkets to include lighter lamb weights could see British consumers getting a taste for a less well finished product.
But as a recent DTI Foresight report indicated: "Sheepmeat will continue to be a minority component of convenience meat products until there is a major breakthrough in deriving from sheep carcasses low cost lean tissue with a low content of fat and modified fatty acid composition."
With about half the finished lamb sold being processed through auction markets against 38% for beef and 3% for pigs the messages back to primary producers are still being fudged, resulting in this sector missing out on growth in the ready meals market.
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