USA lamb retail performance impressive - Australian lamb arrivals up 19%.

The US Beef Board publishes detailed sales and volume figures on a monthly basis and the 12 months figures to June 2016 are now available on the Beef Board site.

Annual retail sales of lamb amounted to US$407 million in 2015-2016 year ended June, a rise of 4.7%. Volume of lamb sold in the 12 months to June was 57.3 million lbs (25,990 tonnes), a jump of a healthy 6.7%. These are retail sales scan data sourced from FreshLook data, categorized by the VMMEAT® SystemFive Weeks Ending 06/26/16. The USA lamb market continues to perform better than remainder of the meat category including beef, pork, chicken and turkey. There was a 1.6% drop in the average lamb retail price to US$7.10 per lb, with the average retail price well in excess of beef, pork and chicken at retail. Beef average price was US$5.06 per lb. Australia exported over 53,000 tonnes of lamb to USA in the 12 months to June 2016. Australia has done particularly well in relation to lamb arrivals in USA and up to week 31 2016, tonnage equaled 34,070 tonnes, 19% higher than the same period in 2015. Australian lamb is now almost 2.5 times greater in volume of arrivals in USA year to date compared to New Zealand lamb and accounts for 73% of total imported lamb arrivals.