Easter lamb off menu for some sellers due to price rises

It is a traditional staple of Easter dinner, but this year some sellers are not stocking lamb due to a spike in price – saying consumers are not willing to pay more for the product.

Rising costs on farms have led to falling demand at the counter, according to Keith Grant – a master butcher from Roundwood in Co Wicklow.

He is one of a number of sellers for whom lamb is off the menu this Easter.

“We’re selling everything else, just not the lamb,” he said.

The price of lamb has jumped by around a third in the past two years, with spring lamb this year reaching €10 a kilo.

Mr Grand said that “a leg of lamb would have been in and around €40 on the high side, now you’re looking at €50-55 for a leg of last season’s lamb, and for this season’s spring lamb between €90-€95 for a leg.

“Every single person said basically the same thing, which was they’re not paying this price for lamb.”

Mr Grant said customers are willing to pay higher prices for other meats such as beef, because they view it as a premium product but “lamb isn’t recognised as a premium product”.

Not selling lamb marks a shift in tradition for the master butcher, but once supply is boosted by more spring lamb coming on the market, he said he will stock the meat again.

“The price will come back, and we will get it (lamb) in but we just can’t sell something we’re not making money on,” he said.

‘It’s never cost as much to keep a sheep on a farm’

Meanwhile, sheep farmers say dwindling livestock numbers and higher input costs have contributed to the jump in price.

Willie Shaw is Sheep Chair with the Irish Cattle & Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA).

He also has a farm near Birr, Co Offaly, with around 500 ewes and is in the midst of lambing season.

He notes that in recent years his cost of doing business has steadily risen.

“It’s never cost as much to keep a sheep on a farm. Fertiliser has gone up 40%, and the feed for sheep has gone up a similar amount,” he said

He said that some of the medications and vaccines needed for his animals have “doubled or even tripled” in price in the last couple of years.

The sharp increase in expenses started in 2022, coinciding with the cost-of-living crisis brought about by the Ukraine war.

Even despite getting more money from factories for his lambs, profit margins for Mr Shaw have still been getting tighter.

“There’s a very modest income to be made out of sheep farming,” he said.

“Every lamb born here leaves with a profit of no more than €30. It’d take 1,500 lambs to make the average industrial wage, which is a phenomenal amount.”

He said that this challenging situation is the reason why so many sheep farmers have left the industry and why numbers are falling as much as they are.

Last year there were around 3,700,000 sheep on Irish farms, but that figure is falling year on year (by 4% between 2023 and 2024).