Total spend on beef and pork has seen an upsurge in the retail sector despite the market continuing to face pressures due to the Covid-19 crisis.
Analysis of recently released retail sales data from Kantar Worldpanel has revealed that the last 12 weeks yielded a largely positive picture for red meat sales in Great Britain.
An increase in beef and pork spending has partly offset some of the disruption caused by the loss of foodservice markets such as restaurants, hotels and pubs.
Total spend on beef during the 12-week period - to week ending 17 May - increased by 26.9 percent on the year, figures show.
Within this, consumers purchased more each time they went to the shop and also increased the frequency of their shopping trips. The number of buyers also rose by 8.7%.
Total spend of minced beef surged by 34.5% during the period as consumers looked for cheaper, easy to cook options during the lockdown - particularly evident during the first weeks of the pandemic.
However, the data does also highlight a significant increase in spending on other beef cuts in recent weeks following campaigns by retailers and the UK's red meat levy boards.
Sales of beef steaks at retail enjoyed a strong end to the 12-week period as the volume sold increased by 24.0% across the duration, when compared to year-earlier levels.
Within this there was a 43.9% increase in the volume of beef steaks sold specifically during the last 4 weeks of the period when compared to the same period in 2019.
The average price of steaks during this time did decrease slightly - a reflection of the promotional offers at retail aiming to increase sales of higher-end cuts to improve the carcase balance.
A decrease in price, combined with the marketing drive and BBQ weather, resulted in 16.4% more consumers buying the product, with the volume per buyer increasing by 6.5% on year-earlier levels.
Rhys Llywelyn, market development manager at Hybu Cig Cymru- Meat Promotion Wales (HCC), said consumers were encouraged to cook restaurant favourites at home and be adventurous with different cuts of red meat.
"This dovetailed into a significant UK-wide campaign funded by the Ring-Fenced Fund, combining the efforts of the three Levy Boards in Wales, Scotland and England which will have helped drive the UK-wide appetite for red meat,” he said.
Headline figures for lamb sales are less positive and this was expected given that the Easter holiday, which usually sees the highest volume of sales during the year, fell at the height of the lockdown.
In contrast to this there are some positive trends which again partly compensate for the loss of the important foodservice market.
Overall, over the three months, lamb sales experienced a decrease in spend despite a 7.0% increase in the average price to £9.90/kg, Kantar figures show.
An increase in the number of consumers of lamb (1.5 percent) helped reduce the impact of a reduced volume of sales per customer.
The frequency of purchases remained stable. Whilst retail sales of lamb roasting joints continued to show a pre-Easter peak, this peak was not as high as the previous year resulting in a drop of total spend by 15.1%.
In contrast to this lamb chops saw an upturn in the volume sold (+ 23.4%) resulting in a spend increase of 25.2%.
Mr Llywelyn said that as both Easter and Ramadan fell during lockdown restrictions, families weren’t able to gather and celebrate with lamb as they traditionally would.
"At HCC we stepped up our consumer marketing campaign and delivered new recipes to tempt home cooks to use different PGI Welsh Lamb cuts.
"Our campaigns will be activated fully in summer and extend into Autumn and Winter,” he added.
A burgeoning pork retail market enjoyed a significant increase in total spend, up 24.2% due to a combination of increase in average price (+ 7.3%) and total volume (+ 15.8%).
Consumers made more frequent purchases of pork buying a little less volume - per shop - but more often.
