A Cumbrian farming official has accused Tesco of failing to live up to its pledge to support British lamb.

National Farmers Union (NFU) Cumbria county adviser Jenny
Willis claimed the leading supermarket is “saying one thing and doing another”, as new figures show its facings of British lamb are down 15 per cent compared with last year.

However, Tesco refutes this, insisting it is the biggest buyer of quality British lamb.

Recent figures show that Tesco is still failing to support British lamb despite pledges made by the supermarket that it would source meat closer to home. The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) Beef and Lamb’s regular “beef and lamb watch”, which surveys a sample of stores, found that Tesco’s facings of home-grown lamb slipped from 73 per cent in August 2014 to 58 per cent in August this year.

The survey found Tesco was the only one of the ‘Big Four’ supermarkets (which also includes Morrisons, Asda and Sainsbury’s) to drop its facings of British lamb.

However, it did improve its August facings of British beef by nine per cent to 93 per cent.

In contrast, Morrisons maintained its 100 per cent British lamb facings, while Sainsbury’s improved its by 11 per cent to 98 per cent, and Asda’s home-grown facings nudged up to 74 per cent.

Nearly three years ago, Tesco’s then chief executive officer Philip Clarke made a number of pledges to British farmers, including that the retailer would source more meat closer to home.

In response to the latest figures, Ms Willis said the report backs up the NFU’s own beef and lamb watch exercise carried out last month when members were asked to provide information on the lamb offers in Tesco and ASDA stores over two weekends.

“The NFU encouraged members to identify examples of sourcing and labelling practices, as well as pricing and promotional activity and whether this included British lamb,” said Ms Willis.

She added: “We are challenging Tesco to explain how this reduction in the percentage of British lamb sold is compatible with their open public commitments to source more meat closer to home.

“British farmers are once again asking, ‘Why in the peak British lamb season are Tesco not backing British?’

“Tesco says it has long-term aims to support British sheep producers by growing their Sustainable Lamb Group partnership but this will take time for farmers to see the benefits. We need to see positive steps now to source British lamb which is at its best.”

The union said AHDB uses an independent organisation to carry out the survey which involves a representative sample of all types of stores and retailers and would not focus on convenience stores or Tesco local stores.

A statement from Tesco said: “We recognise the quality of British lamb and are proud to be the biggest buyer of it. To ensure our customers have consistently high quality and affordable lamb all year round, we do source from both the UK and New Zealand.”

The statement said British lamb is labelled in their stores with both Red Tractor and the Union Jack to allow customers to simply identify British products as part of their shopping choices.

The fresh meat counters are 100 per cent British all year round.