Scotch Premier aims for supermarket sales following success with butchers Highland Lamb is a hit Scotch Premier says it has doubled sales of lamb following the opening of a specialist lamb processing plant at Dornoch, Sutherland. A marketing campaign for Highland Lamb will concentrate initially on the 650 butchers throughout the UK who regularly buy Scotch Premier beef but it is hoped to develop both supermarket and export outlets. "We are very encouraged by the positive response of our regular customers who are enthused by the concept of high quality branded lamb from the Highlands of Scotland," said Scotch Premier md Raymond Wight. "We are delighted with the quality of lambs coming into the plant. Our retail customers are adding Highland Lamb to their weekly Scotch Premier beef order." Scotch Premier's Highland Lamb brand was launched at the Foodex Meatex trade fair at Birmingham in March to complement the company's highly successful Scotch Premer beef. The ANM arm has made a considerable investment in a new specialist state-of-the-art lamb slaughter line at Dornoch abattoir, purchased out of receivership last year. Throughput is already up to 1,000 lambs a week ­ more than double the number Scotch Premier previously had slaughtered on contract at other abattoirs ­ and is set to rise to 2,500 head by the end of the year. Ten full-time staff are already employed at the plant and this is projected to increase to 51 when full production of 5,000 lambs a week is reached. Scotch Premier's sister company H and I Livestock of Inverness is procurement agent for the plant and will be finishing store lambs from the Western Isles on its own grazings as well as procuring lambs direct from finishers. "The plant is now fully operational and we are all geared up for the start of the main lamb marketing season," said Wight. Brian Pack, chief executive of ANM Group, said: "Dornoch is in the heart of lamb country and should facilitate the building of a brand utilising the image of the Highlands." {{MEAT }}

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