The most important part of Alberta Lamb’s promotion programs may be letting consumers know where they can buy Alberta lamb, says an Alberta producer.
“A lot of people in the province enjoy Alberta lamb, but they don’t know where they can buy it,” said Gerrit Van Hierden, who delivers lamb each week to Calgary restaurants.
He has increased the flock at his family farm in Fort Macleod to 700 ewes from 500 and would expand again to keep up with demand if he could hire more workers.
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Like other lamb producers, Van Hierden formerly sold his lambs through auction markets. He questioned why his carefully raised lamb with no hormones or antibiotics received no price premium. He began selling lamb through farmers’ markets, but wasn’t keen on spending every weekend peddling lamb a few packages at a time.
“I thought, ‘there must be a consumer out there who would be willing to pay a little more,’ ” he said.
Through his Alberta Lamb connections he began to make contacts in the restaurant trade. Now, almost all of his 800 lambs a year are sold directly to customers or through 20 southern Alberta restaurants.
He said the increasing demand for Alberta lamb is a result of promotional programs through Growing Alberta, Dine Alberta and Alberta Lamb, which is the promotional arm of the Alberta Sheep and Wool Producers.
Three years ago, Alberta Lamb began promoting its product at trade shows. It recently finished three days in the demonstration kitchen at Calgary Stampede to rave reviews.
“We can’t keep up with the demand for samples,” said Julie Brewster, communications co-ordinator with Alberta Lamb.
Visitors to the booth at the Stampede are no different than those at other trade shows Brewster attends. At first consumers are wary of the meat they have only heard horror stories about from their grandfathers who ate it during the war. Others believed lamb was available only from New Zealand or Australia and not Alberta.
Now visitors to the booth come back each year asking for new recipe cards and booklets or wondering where they can buy more Alberta lamb.
Unlike beef and pork associations with producer checkoffs that fund rich promotional budgets, Alberta Sheep Producers has little money and must make each promotional penny count.
“Advertising is so very expensive,” said Brewster, who hands out lamb kebobs and lamb meatballs at the trade show booth.
“There’s no use spending money on a nice glossy ad in a magazine if no one has tasted lamb.”
Darren Nixon, chef and owner of Divine, a restaurant in Okotoks, Alta., developed the recipes for Alberta Lamb. A believer in promoting Alberta-grown products in his restaurant, Nixon has spent hours creating unique recipes for each part of the lamb carcass.
He wanted to break with traditional recipes such as leg of lamb and rack of lamb and show the meat’s versatility.
“I’m always trying to do things a little different with lamb,” said Nixon, who serves local product in his lunch and evening menus.
His homemade lamb burger now outsells his homemade beef burger on the lunch menu. He has regular customers who come in each week for lamb shank on the evening menu.
“A lot thought they didn’t like lamb,” said Nixon, who hands out lamb recipe cards at his restaurant.
While producers like Van Hierden were having trouble finding buyers for lamb, chefs like Nixon were having trouble finding lamb before the promotional programs helped matched growers and consumers.
“Without a doubt it’s been a big success,” Nixon said.
