Orkney mutton

[nederlander]

I notice, that once again, Shetland is being left miles behind when promoting the produce we have in the isles! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/7699254.stm

Why are they so much better at this than we are? We don't seem to be championing our Shetand lamb, which, in my opinion, is certainly on par, if not better than NZ lamb and Welsh lamb!

 

So are we missing, or rather are SLMG and the Acricultural sector, missing a huge oppurtunity to get our lamb recognised internationally? I know this has happened via endorsements by top chefs and the like, so why do not hear of Shetland lamb being held up with Welsh and NZ?

 

(edit - mods, feel free to move this if you think it is better suited in the food and drink section )

[Ghostrider]

Read the article in October's Shetland Life about Shetland meat, the Shetlander's downfall is that few can work together in any number for a common cause. Co-ops never fared well, only enterprises with one leader calling the shots and everyone else working for them were ever much of a success, call it a leftover legacy of "training" from the days of the old lairds if you will. Old habits die hard.

 

The problem today is that of the few willing to take the risk of trying to set up as the one calling the shots and get things moving, almost all are people that the rest won't do business with for one reason or another.

[shetlander]

Adding to Ghostrider's comments, I think the wider issue of islanders reluctance to blow their own trumpet about the quality of local produce generally and, in terms of new food related ventures, less of an entrepreneurial spirit than elsewhere (due mainly to such a plentiful supply of jobs locally) are factors too.

 

The marketing gurus are doing more - take the newly launched Shetland Food website and the Shetland Food Festival as examples - but a lot comes down to suppliers and retailers promoting local produce themselves and a public who are not only willing to buy it but to try it being cooked in innovative new ways.

 

I'm conscious I'm looking at more of a local level here but how many isles pubs/cafes/takeaways are more likely to have Shetland black tattie chips, home made tattie soup and bannocks, local lamb burgers etc on their food menus than the usual processed rubbish for example?

[TeeAyBee]

I'm conscious I'm looking at more of a local level here but how many isles pubs/cafes/takeaways are more likely to have Shetland black tattie chips, home made tattie soup and bannocks, local lamb burgers etc on their food menus than the usual processed rubbish for example?

 

Is that a rhetorical question or can anyone answer it? I for one would love to be able to buy such fodder but it seems a mite sparse, especially when the tourists are in town. Okay, so who does the best tattie soup on sale in a Shetland eatery/take-away?

 

As to the original poster's comment, I think to a certain extent you're on the money there. The recent food festival's praise from the bigger players in the food business showed I think that the quality of produce locally is very high, and in some areas leaves Orkney for dead, but Orkney seems to be able to sell itself so much better. Is it the reserved and humble nature of the Shetland producers that gives rise to a reticence to put themselves forward or is it a lack of awareness of a Shetland brand elsewhere? Before moving here I was very much aware of Orkney cheese, beer, whisky, beef and farmed salmon as I saw it in supermarkets sold as high quality produce. I was only aware of Shetland products through word of mouth and there was little evidence of it in the places where I could get Orkney produce.

 

I guess that the Economic Development Unit are working on this, the Food Festival and the profile of the "Flavour of Shetland" are testament to the ball beginning to roll in that direction so perhaps in the future we'll see more about Shetland produce nationally.

 

BTW, yes I know this is a bit sad, I was reading the British Airways "Highlife" magazine that was stuck in front of me during a flight from LHR to EDI and the "Flavour of Shetland"! was listed as a top festival in the UK for food and fun by Hester Blumenthal the guest editor of that edition. I don't recall seeing an Orkney entry in the magazine at all, not even a Highland Park one

[Bubi]

!. The mutton promoted is very special. A special breed living on mainly seaweed. I don't think Shetland has an equivalent.

 

2. We are crofters, producing lamb, should be proud of our produce. And I am, but I am not sure what is so special about Shetland lamb?

 

3. Shetland lamb are diverse products. There's different breeds and there are different ways of feeding.

 

4. As for SLMG, I am taken aback with their lack of service to us a producers.

 

We want to go to the Ram Sale. I tried to look it up at the website. But it hasn't been updated since early 2007. Then tried to email but only got an answer 4 days later. Meanwhile I phoned but nobody answered the phone the 1st 3 calls during normal office hours. On the phone I was told Ram Sale is Saturday 1st at 6. The email said Saturday at 5ish. Later I heard around that the Ram Sale was moved to Friday 31st. Checked with SLMG. This time I had contact in 3rd phonecall......

 

Not exactly impressive service I can only guess how bad they perform in marketing.

[TeeAyBee]

!. The mutton promoted is very special. A special breed living on mainly seaweed. I don't think Shetland has an equivalent.

 

Seaweed fed Shetland Lamb has a fantastic flavour.

 

2. We are crofters, producing lamb, should be proud of our produce. And I am, but I am not sure what is so special about Shetland lamb?

 

From an eaters perspective I would say that the Shetland lamb is sweeter and has a deeper flavour. The texture is better and it tends to be leaner (or at least the bits I buy seem to be).

 

3. Shetland lamb are diverse products. There's different breeds and there are different ways of feeding.

 

And you can taste the difference! Pure(er) Shetland breeds have that sweetness I mentioned and seaweed fed is different to hill reared.

 

4. As for SLMG, I am taken aback with their lack of service to us a producers.

 

Please excuse my ignorance but what is SLMG? I'm a lamb eater not a crofter so I don't know

[Bubi]

"Please excuse my ignorance but what is SLMG? I'm a lamb eater not a crofter so I don't know"

 

Shetland Livestock Marketing Group. They run the Livestock Mart, situated in the same buildings as Harbroe on Staney Hill.

 

Thank you for your comments on taste!

 

Where can you buy specific mutton, like seaweed feed lamb or hill lamb? In fact, we are not aware of anywhere to sell our lambs other than the Mart.

 

Of cause I think our own meat is divine but also I am aware that I might not be impartial We tend to have too fat lambs which ultimately is because we are too generous with their food - or simply we have too much grass for too few sheep.

 

We are presently at a turning point in our crofting. I sort of like to support the old shetland lamb breed, but it does not pay at all. We attended the Livestock Mart a month ago and shetland lamb obtained only 1/3 of the price of crossbred lambs i.e. app £15 and £45-55.

 

So we are going to buy a muckle ram and start crossbreeding. You get 3 times the price with roughly the same work.

[Bubi]

We don't buy any fodder. We produce our own hay and kale for winterfeed and it is almost like a living museum. They hay is cut and recked by hand. Kale is fertilised with seaweed and hens/sheep muck. Dug with spades in the spring. There has not been used fertilizer or lime the last 25 years on our croft.

 

I guess that makes our meat organic or even bio-dynamic (am no expert here). But yet we don't get any higher price for our lambs.

[nederlander]

Tee, you have beaten me to the punch!Oh, and SLMG are the Shetland Livestock Marketing Group!

 

!. The mutton promoted is very special. A special breed living on mainly seaweed. I don't think Shetland has an equivalent.

 

I agree that the mutton they are promoting is special, but simply because of the limited amount they produce, not because it is fed on seaweed. See http://www.shetlandlamb.com/index.php

 

2. We are crofters, producing lamb, should be proud of our produce. And I am, but I am not sure what is so special about Shetland lamb?

 

You seem to be contradicting yourself there. You are proud of your produce but don't know what is special about it?

 

the Shetlander's downfall is that few can work together in any number for a common cause. Co-ops never fared well, only enterprises with one leader calling the shots and everyone else working for them were ever much of a success

 

This is something that I have been hearing quite a lot of recently! I know that politics within crofting in Shetland is complicated, but I cannot understand how they cannot realise that if they were to group together they could do so much more! Shetland should be looking to promote the brand of "Shetland Lamb", but of course that starts at the prodcers level, so I suppose until they get over whatever petty problems they have with each other then it probably won't go very far!

 

[edit- you don't have a link to that article do you?]

[Bubi]

^ahh, thanx for the link. I'll dig a bit tonight in this.

 

My folks sheep have access to the shore and so have a lot of sheep around here. But they seem to only eat seaweed when there is nothing else available so that definition of seaweed mutton is not worth a lot.

 

Nederlander, how is it that other peoples problems always seem petty to us? I'm trying to descripe the present situation from a producers point of view, to us they do not seem small.

 

As I have a strong interest in the subject, I'd very much like to find out what exactly goes wrong and what could be done.

 

And I have not even mentioned the wool market yet.

[paulb]

the first step would be a new slaughter house. its a joke that you cant buy shetland lamb in the supermarkets. next we should be showing the world that the sheep are from small well cared flocks. maybe the organic route should be looked at.

 

the orkney sheep are special and i commend them for having the skills to market there lamb,beef, cheese,icecream ect.

[crofter]

 

I guess that makes our meat organic or even bio-dynamic (am no expert here). But yet we don't get any higher price for our lambs.

 

You're not ''Organic'' unless you have been inspected by an Organic body and found to be following their standards. After you sign up and pay them a fee, you can legally sell your lambs as ''Organic'' - but I'm not sure if there is much of a premium for certified organic lambs at the moment anyway... Heard someone say on Radio Shetland the other night that there are Shetland lambs being shipped south and sold as ''Wesh mountain lamb'' because there is a premium for that!

[nederlander]

^ahh, thanx for the link. I'll dig a bit tonight in this.

 

My folks sheep have access to the shore and so have a lot of sheep around here. But they seem to only eat seaweed when there is nothing else available so that definition of seaweed mutton is not worth a lot.

 

Nederlander, how is it that other peoples problems always seem petty to us? I'm trying to descripe the present situation from a producers point of view, to us they do not seem small.

 

As I have a strong interest in the subject, I'd very much like to find out what exactly goes wrong and what could be done.

 

And I have not even mentioned the wool market yet.

 

I know that there is sheep that eat a lot of seaweed, despite the availibility of grass nearby, the Brig o Waas is a perfect example, Yell is another. Maybe your sheep don't eat it, so defining them as seaweed fed may not be worth a lot, but thats clearly not the case for others.

 

Ok, I accept my "petty" quote is a sweeping statement, point taken. Believe me I know how hard it is for producers. Do you sell your animals south to be finished?

 

the first step would be a new slaughter house. its a joke that you cant buy shetland lamb in the supermarkets. next we should be showing the world that the sheep are from small well cared flocks. maybe the organic route should be looked at.

 

the orkney sheep are special and i commend them for having the skills to market there lamb,beef, cheese,icecream ect.

 

I wasn't insinuating that the Orkney sheep in question are not good quality, but I don't think that they are a particularly unique product. Absolutely, they do incredibly well at marketing their produce, I just question why we couldn't do the same, as we have equally good produce here. The slaughter house is another thing all together. To be honest, I would say that the current set up is ok for lamb, but for beef produciton then there certainly needs to be improvements!

[Ghostrider]

A slaughterhouse would make a significant improvement, SLMG's heart *may* be in the right place pushing for the one that's been mooted in recent years, but my personal opinion is that its once more a "Gold Plated Rolls Royce" version, and a much cheaper, smaller, basic facility would suffice to get things off the ground at least. Design it so that it was easily extendable as and when and if it made money to justify it, what's on the table just now is far greater than there's any proof other than "consultants" opinions is necessary. There's also the expectation among far too many that its going to be built for free, aka by the council. Fair enough, a new marts was had on that basis, after some behind the scene deals went through that were very questionable, but time has moved on, and maybe the council isn't such a gullible cash cow as it was 10+ years ago. If a slaughterhouse is a viable concern, some enterprising individual(s) are going to just have to put the money up and get on with it, as SLMG seem unable or unwilling to take that initiative any further.

 

Twenty years ago Shetland had a decent privately owned public slaughterhouse, which was to the EU standards of the day, the majority of independent butchers in Lerwick sourced their beef from him, he took all the finished cattle he could get his hands on and imported them from Orkney when he couldn't. He handled a lot of sheep too, but the big problem back then was a lack of finished stock to build up a regular market. End of August to Christmas was fine, then nothing, and sheep weren't such a readily available or viable import as cattle, so the rest of the year was next to nothing.

 

The business was well established and viable, and in a prime position for expansion, perhaps a cold store so that the lamb/mutton season could be extended, perhaps in to added value products such as processed meats etc, the idea had been mooted, and experimented with on a very small scale. Certainly some sort of initiative between the slaughterhouse and producers needed to be explored to try and achieve an all year round consistency of supply.

 

Instead, as was his right, the slaughterhouse's owner decided to take his business is a wholly different direction, and eventually decided on a new career entirely, selling on the slaughterhouse to someone else. That new owner, as is his right, has steadily reduced the size and the activities of the business ever since, until now there's not much left. Shetland nearly had the means to launch Shetland meat on to a much bigger market twenty years ago, but its been entirely lost again. That needs to be gotten back, and added to to take it all the way.

[paulb]

but the post slaughter is what lets it down if its not up to the supermarkets quality standards we will never be able to sell our quality meat in the supermarket either up here or down south. that then rules us out from the main meat market.

 

i was looking at the development trust investments and this shows that they have investments of only 0.1% in farming. i know that fish related items are important but if we dont have a fairer share out then like now we will be selling our animals as scottish welsh or whatever. can you imagine the new zealanders willing to sell theres as anything else.

 

one of our council members wants the status quo to remain ie selling the lambs as store animals to the mainland. why? well i know if your going to make the most of the animals we have to finish them here, the same with our cows having them sent away for finishing or slaughter is daft. the profit is in selling the finished processed goods.

 

the local butchers are great and they support local farmers were they can but even they find it hard to have local meat in all the time. so untill we can supply our own market what chance have we with the outside world.

 

a friend wants to start a chicken farm he wants to produce about 300 birds a week (free range) but again he would need to have his own slaughter house and become a slaughterman. which of course has to be paid for and inspected and regulated.

 

if we want to be free from dependancy on outside food supply this and other folks need to be supported. the amout of land turned over from crops to sheep needs to be reversed. the green houses at tingwall need to be used its a joke that we have important assets not being used.