2024 Lamb Sales Highlighted at Meat Conference
ALB recently attended the 2025 Annual Meat Conference (AMC). Sponsored by FMI and the Meat Institute, this educational event brings together all segments of the retail meat industry to learn how to improve meat and poultry marketing, operations, and profitability.
The 2025 Power of Meat Study, conducted by 210 Analytics, was released at the conference. The study highlights shopper insights and behavior trends related to shopping, preparing and consuming meat. The study showed overwhelmingly positive results for the meat industry as a whole and for lamb in particular.
In 2024, dollar sales and volume sales of meat and poultry experienced growth. The average annual expenditure per U.S. household on meat and poultry reached $871, with 98% of households purchasing these products.
One exceptionally bright spot for lamb was the growth in fresh meat sales. Fresh meat had a remarkable year, with sales exceeding $73 billion, reflecting a 6.7% increase over 2023. When presenting these findings in the fresh meat category, Anne-Marie Roerink, president of 201 Analytics, emphasized that lamb sales, in particular, were noteworthy.
“You see that fresh meat had a tremendous year led by beef, but really all proteins within fresh meat had gains in pounds,” she said. “Look at lamb, for instance. My guess is that over the next year, we’ll see lamb become a billion-dollar category.”
One Key: Building Consumer Confidence
The study also found that in 2024, there continued to be a multi-year shift toward more Americans cooking at home as they dined out less. However, many consumers in the study indicated a desire to create more premium restaurant-style meals at home, which is another bright spot for both lamb and the work being done by the American Lamb Board.
The study found that 87 percent of consumers are interested in recipes and tips for making premium, restaurant-quality meals with indulgent, involved cuts at home. At the same time, 27 percent of consumers are willing to spend a bit more on meat and poultry when replacing a restaurant meal. In both cases, American Lamb is a great option.
Another bright spot for lamb, according to the study, is that while many consumers have favorite cuts and types of meat, 58% are open to trying new options. One of the most significant barriers to trying new meats was a lack of confidence in preparing them. Fortunately, ALB has spent years developing programs and partnerships to help consumers more confidently prepare American Lamb in their kitchen and is well poised to help consumers add American Lamb to their at-home menus.
“ALB’s long-term partnerships with Lambassadors and more recent sponsorships with online cooking schools like Homemade are exactly what many of these consumers are looking for as they prepare new cuts of meat at home,” says ALB chairman Jeff Ebert. “So many of the partnerships and programs ALB has been working to develop are exactly what today’s consumers are looking for when shopping for new meat cuts.”