Sheep breeders and increased lamb consumption in the United States

Lamb Consumption in United States

Over the years Lamb and wool production in United States have been closely linked to wool production. Lamb production has consistently shown inconsistency and varies from season to season. Demand for lamb is lowest in the month of summer and fall. Prices play a major role in determining market demand for a lamb and so does the supply, which is required to meet those demands. Apart from these two factors, more factors influence market demand for lamb in United States. The function of demand and supply is a basic stuff at retail level. Marketing of product is also required, which will encourage customers to buy at a higher price. Unfortunately, in United States prices of lamb and wool both have gone down since 1975. As a result, a lamb price has not helped in recovering the sheep industry. Due to low prices the profit ratio has been decreased as a result sheep inventories has declined which has resulted in decreased consumption of lamb. Statistic shows that the consumption has decreased from 4.5 pounds per capita in 1960 to 0.88 pounds in 2011, which is all time low. According to Nationwide Food Consumption Survey (NFCS), that lamb is bought by less then 5% of house holds on weekly basis. Despite the downward trend the sheep breeders has taken steps to increase lamb consumption in United States. Following are the steps taken to increase lamb consumption:

Study and Research:

Since consumption of wool and lamb are interrelated to, each other studies and research are being carried out to determine the reason for low quality wool, being produced by the sheep's in United States. Breeding the right type of sheep is also part of this issue as it can help in boosting sheep industry. The research also concentrates on producing leaner lambs since the population is now more health conscious then ever and doing so will help sheep breeders to penetrate the market.

New Lamb Products:

Like chicken, pork and beef sheep industry is now trying to come up with products that are easily available in stores to everyone and more importantly easy to cook in minimum amount of time. Ready to cook and ready to serve meals are being prepared which are not only tasty but also nutritious for health.

Marketing of Lamb Products:

Over the years, we have seen in United States that the population has become more and more health conscious, which has severely affected the demand for red meat specially, lamb and lamb products. In order to capture market share it is very important to prepare a short-term and a long-term market strategy to give it a kick-start and to keep it running in the long-term. Marketing for lamb and lamb products should focus around creating awareness about the positive impacts of red meat consumption to the society and negative impacts of not doing so. Similarly, marketing of lamb products should be done focusing more or tasty stuff created for consumption with minimum ease. Like the Kentucky chicken products this food chain should be approached to produce, something may be something similar to Kentucky chicken, which can again sharply increase consumer demand for lamb and lamb products.

Measures to reduce cost: