A SURVEY of 45 supermarket stores across Scotland by NFU Scotland's "secret shoppers" between April 9 and 12 showed only a 44 per cent commitment to lamb produced in the UK.

That has led the Union to say that Scottish sheep farmers are appalled and disappointed at the lack of support Scottish supermarkets are giving to Scotch Lamb this Easter.

With significant numbers of Scottish stock still on farm, the Union's secret shoppers, when counting packs of chilled lamb in stores the length and breadth of the country, have found almost all retailers giving people little choice to buy Scotch Lamb.

Easter weekend marks one of the few times in the year when families are guaranteed to get around the dinner table to enjoy a meal, with many seeking out home-produced meat. Sadly, the Union's shelf-watch has indicated that shoppers will have to look hard in stores to find any Scottish, or turn to their local butcher if they want to buy some fresh, local Scotch Lamb.

The shelf-watch results show that, despite previous commitments by some supermarkets, most of the leading retailers appear to have chosen to import huge volumes of New Zealand and Australian lamb, shunning home producers. More worryingly, the Union claims that this week's results show a marked decrease from the results in previous years, leading to farmers questioning the long-term commitment of supermarkets supporting Scottish sheep farmers.

The NFUS secret shoppers' findings fly in the face of the latest UK import figures released by AHDB Beef & Lamb. It said volumes of sheep-meat imported to the UK saw further declines in February, a month when imports usually begin to rise.

Volumes were down by 36 per cent on the previous year at 5,800 tonnes, the lowest level for the month since 2012. This sharp fall was driven by a 43 per cent decline in shipments from New Zealand at 4,200 tonnes. This follows production in the UK being higher and the weak pound meaning that New Zealand product could not remain as competitive on the UK market. Volumes coming from other major suppliers, such as Australia and Ireland, were also lower, down 13 and 4 per cent respectively.

The average import price was up by 14 per cent, meaning that the overall value of imports was down 27 per cent at £26.7m.

This is the second successive month when import volumes have seen large declines, meaning that in the first two months of 2017, imports to the UK have been back 26 per cent at 12,100 tonnes.