Sheep producers trying new approach

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Beef is what's for dinner. Pork is the other white meat. Now, sheep producers have an advertising slogan they hope will get consumers to eat more lamb: "Meat Lovers Know."

The new promotional campaign, which starts this month, is designed to reverse a slide in U.S. lamb consumption and revive the sheep industry.

"We wanted to build a new identity for American lamb, an identity that would give consumers an ability to know American lamb when they see American lamb," said Paul Rodgers, marketing director for the American Sheep Industry Association.

The ads, appearing first in food magazines, are getting under way with the help of a government grant. But the Agriculture Department is considering a new tax on sheep that will provide a permanent source of money for promoting lamb.

Similar fees pay for the "Got Milk?" ads for milk as well as campaigns for beef, pork and other commodities.

The lamb ads are targeted at upscale consumers who already like the meat. "The truth is that our best prospects are people who already accept it but don't eat it often enough," said Mark Williams of the advertising agency Campbell-Mithun, which developed the ads.

U.S. sheep production dropped by 40 percent in the 1990s as the government phased out wool subsidies, and imports of lamb from Australia and New Zealand soared. Americans now eat 1.3 pounds of lamb per person annually, down from 1.5 pounds in the early 1990s. By comparison, Americans each year eat 96 pounds of beef and 68 pounds of pork per person.

"We need a concerted effort for lamb promotion and marketing," said Rick Harbaugh, vice president of Iowa Lamb Processing. "Lamb marketing and promotion has pretty much on a national scale been nonexistent for the last five, six or seven years, and we've lost market share to imports and other proteins."

The government ruled in 1999 that sheep producers were being harmed by the surge in lamb imports and imposed temporary tariffs to help the U.S. industry.

The U.S. International Trade Commission said producers needed to do more to help themselves. Although there was evidence that consumers preferred domestic lamb, producers do little or no promotion, the commission said.