Lamb and beef sales drop in Mayo due to rising cost - master butcher Seán Kelly

Households are overlooking lamb and roast beef for chicken to save money, a Mayo award-winning butcher has stated.

Newport butcher Séan Kelly told the Irish Independent he has seen a big change in the meats people are buying for their dinner.

“Years ago, legs of lamb and roast beef were sold every weekend, but that has all changed. The leg of lamb is hardly ever sold now,” he said.

Lamb sales in the shop are now a fraction of what they were three decades ago, despite the west of Ireland being renowned for producing lamb

The family-owned business is best known for its own range of award-winning speciality sausages and black and white puddings, which are stocked by supermarkets including Dunnes Stores, Tesco and SuperValu. They are also sold in Britain.

“The price of beef has gone up an awful lot, but then everything else, such as wages and electricity, have gone up too,” Mr Kelly said.

Asked by the newspaper what customers were doing to cope with the increasing cost of meat, he said: “People are buying more chicken than they ever did.”

He said he was still selling some beef, but lamb sales are well down.

“It’s very hard to sell lamb because it is so dear. It is a meat that is not classed as being as lean as beef,” he said.

Across the economy, a leg of lamb is up by €6.26 a kilogram since April 2021, a rise of 52pc, according to the Central Statistics Office consumer price index figures.

Despite the rise in meat prices in the past five years, he said he can still offer value to the cost-conscious consumer.

“We can sell you a kilo of mince and a bag of potatoes for less than the price of a packet of cigarettes,” he said.

The business has its own abattoir and a 6,000sq ft facility where it makes its signature black and white puddings and sausages.

Most of the cattle it uses for its meat products are from its own farm.

The abattoir is one of five left in Mayo. In 1998, there were 38, Mr. Kelly said.

He added that he has had to find new ways to sell meat 'completely differently from years ago'.

“Before, we would just sell a pork fillet, and now it’s a pork fillet en croute, and it sells very well,” he added.