The price of lamb

In September last year I wrote about the price of lamb and how I thought it was likely to affect sales.  Today there is an article in Stuff talking about the price of lamb and how it is driving away customers: Lamb sales suffer from higher prices. It includes this classic paragraph:

Buyer resistance to lamb's high price was only being talked about by Silver Fern's other customers. In New Zealand, research showed that price was the biggest impediment to sales.

Hardly surprising really. 

In my original article I said the price of a full leg of lamb was at least $35.00.  About a week ago I was looking at buying a leg of lamb and was fairly stunned to find the price of a full leg was over $50.00, something also pointed out in the article.

That's just under a 50% price increase in about 6 months.   Fucking outrageous!

While I'm on the subject of lamb, a particularly disturbing trend has begun to appear on the supermarket shelves.  The lamb legs are being stripped of the outer fat layer and membrane that sits over the outer fat layer.  This makes it impossible to get that beautiful, crisp, wonderfully browned outside layer on the lamb when roasting it.  I'm very, very disappointed by this move.

Not sure how this will work.

According the NZ Herald, farmers have lost $50 million through the deaths of some 500,000 lambs thanks to the recent storms.  This is likely to cause the price of lamb to rise. Personally I can't see how this is going to work.

Lamb is already outrageously priced.  A full leg costs at least $35.00 locally, usually more.  Shank ends are around $15-20.00.   Even a couple of shanks cost $10.00 or so.

Camille and I can be considered well off compared to the majority of New Zealanders and we very rarely buy lamb because of how much it is these days.  We only buy lamb when it is reduced in price: Lamb racks when they are reduced to $10 - $12 each; legs when Silverfern farms has a special on them; rumps when I can find them frozen on special; and so on.

I can't see how raising the price further to offset $50 million in lamb deaths is going to do anything other than cause fewer people to buy it.   Does this mean they are going to have to raise the price further to cover those lost sales?