In 2012, the total kilograms of lamb imported into Canada increased by 1.4%. As seen in the graph below, this is a relatively small change and imports remain significantly lower in 2012 than in 2008 and 2009.
Canadian Import/Export of Lamb
The four countries sending almost all of the fresh or frozen lamb to Canada are: New Zealand (NZ), Australia (AU), the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK). NZ and AU supplied 96 percent of the imported lamb to Canada with the US and the UK supplying only 3.8 percent of the imported product. As illustrated in the graph below, the amount of lamb being imported from NZ has been decreasing since 2009. Australia was supplying more product in 2009 but has started to fill the gap created by New Zealand in 2012. It is interesting to note that the majority of the new market share obtained in 2012 by AU, the US and the UK is in the fresh or chilled product category.
The US has been a minor player in supplying the Canadian market. But in 2012, the US supplied 48 percent more fresh lamb and 156 percent more frozen lamb to Canada than in 2011. The graph below illustrates the volume of imported lamb coming from the US and the UK. Note the scale in kilograms is much different than for the NZ, AU graph. The UK started supplying lamb to the Canadian marketplace in 2011. In 2012, they have a small 0.2 percent share of the marketplace but have plans to continue to grow their market share promoting quality, standard lamb.
Information on the UK standard product can be found on the Eblex Trade Marketing website. They have done work to standardize the way that lambs are cut and how the products are identified. The specifications for their system can be found at Eblex Trade.
There is also a retail costing calculator available.
Source: The import information used for the graphs above was retrieved from the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Red Meat Information website.
