Lamb Burgers - marketing potential.

[Courier]

On second thoughts most of them probably haven't a clue it's sheepmeat...

On further reflection it probably isn't!!

Thought donner kebab was goat [emoji1360]

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Thought donner kebab was goat [emoji1360]

I boned out a hogget/big lamb sized goat we shot, ate it at a Christmas BBQ, and they all said it was the best lamb they'd ever eaten [emoji21] don't really think that's what I wanted to hear.
Plenty of tail enders/what the conventional guys jokingly refer to as 'organic lambs' or 'weedy little bastrds' that won't be full of fat, or commanding a premium price coming into winter... that's what I'd be using for promotion. A bit like the nutrient-dense argument, flavour and meat-dense lamb.
The trouble with commercial processing is the volume of water, local works uses over 1000 litres per lamb on the chain.. out goes the blood and half the beautiful flavour. Exactly the opposite of what you want.. stuff we eat ourselves has maximum blood attached and usually a good few months older than spec

 

[Man_in_black]

stuff we eat ourselves has maximum blood attached and usually a good few months older than spec

+1

 

[beeftug]

Just to throw a spanner in the works is mincing the lamb going to create enough value from the carcass?
Looking at beef burgers sold in the supermarkets your looking at a value of £6kg in burgers for the best stuff sat on the shelf you can buy them a lot cheaper, although meat content goes down with the cheap stuff more fillers.
Think you would have to market lamb burgers cheaper to get them to sell so say £5kg in burger form.
A 42kg fat lamb killing out at say roughly 50% 21kg @£5kg
Works out at £105 head by the time you take out the slaughter costs butchering and mincing, and the supermarket has had there nice wedge for selling it what are we going to be left with? Can't see it being anymore at all that current fat price if even that.

Unfortunately, the lamb that kills out at 21kg R3L will only give you around 12kg of boneless trimmed meat for burger/sausage production. Therefore your £5/kg brings the lamb back to £60. Yes you fill your burger out with rusk and ingredients to bring your end price up.( the amount depends on the quality you aim for) We use only shoulder meat for our burgers, adding breast is too fat and ruins the mix , the leg and the loin meat is to valuable for burgers. Remember as U.K. Farmers we are competing with imported meat, NZ lamb trim 85% lean(ideal for burgers) is trading at £3.30/kg and it is a consistent year round product that I don't think we as lamb producers can compete with. McDonald's will fly the U.K. Flag but I don't think we can compete on price and consistency.

 

[Sheeponfire]

We had a visitor here from Morroco, a student and devout Muslim. When she left she cooked some diced lamb shoulder for us as a thank you. Basically she boiled it up in a pot on the cooker top and I was dreading it, thinking the fat would have that sheepy taste and leave me feeling a bit queasy. It was one of our own out of the freezer and I knew it was a bit fat.

But no, the combination of herbs and spices she used seemed to neutralise the "muttony" taste and it was one of the nicest lamb dishes I have ever eaten. A sort of tagine I think. She did fried almonds with it as well. It wasn't hot like a curry, but was flavoursome in a good way. They seems to have cracked the art of neutralising the "old tup" taste without drowning it in hot spices.

She used her granny's recipe and a fair number of spices she had brought with her on the plane as they don't sell them here. She was also very impressed with the lamb we produce compared to that they have back home which she said consumes so much litter, rubbish, plastic and such like that it affects its growth rate and quality.

Anyway, it did make me think that these folk know a thing or two about cooking lamb, and really we in the UK, with our roast leg and chops are only scratching the surface of a whole range of culinary methods that can make lamb a much more appealing meat.

I am sure a lot of ethnic people in the UK are already using lamb in lots of imaginative and inspiring ways. Maybe we could learn from them and bring their dishes to a wider consumer base, helping lamb sales in the process.

Good post... well said

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Unfortunately, the lamb that kills out at 21kg R3L will only give you around 12kg of boneless trimmed meat for burger/sausage production. Therefore your £5/kg brings the lamb back to £60. Yes you fill your burger out with rusk and ingredients to bring your end price up.( the amount depends on the quality you aim for) We use only shoulder meat for our burgers, adding breast is too fat and ruins the mix , the leg and the loin meat is to valuable for burgers. Remember as U.K. Farmers we are competing with imported meat, NZ lamb trim 85% lean(ideal for burgers) is trading at £3.30/kg and it is a consistent year round product that I don't think we as lamb producers can compete with. McDonald's will fly the U.K. Flag but I don't think we can compete on price and consistency.

We are getting paid ~$5/kg so that's not a huge markup. Blame our meat companies for it, it's worth a damn sight more than that!!!
Best thing is to get all your top TV cooks raising lamb's profile. As agreed, it can be a bit ho-hum if it's not prepared the right way, I shudder to think what the stuff in the supermarkets tastes like.
Then again stuffed if I know why chicken is the meat of the century either, with wholegrain bog roll flavour
Seems the masses just like bland food, I'd eat wild duck over most things myself.