The American Lamb Board (ALB), a producer-funded trade organization, has made top line lamb retail sales data available, enabling retailers to utilize FreshLook Marketing data to benchmark their performance.

The move marks the first time the Denver, Colo.-based ALB has made lamb sales data available to the retail community; meat case directors can now view dollar and pound shares by protein and within lamb, by cut on a monthly basis. A preview of available sales data will be made available on the Lamb Board's Web site (details found below), and retailers can request the full data set by contacting the organization directly.

"Fresh American Lamb is still a niche in many retail meat cases," said Megan Wortman, ALB's executive director. "As a resource to the industry, we are making sales data, along with other marketing tools, available to retailers to help them increase lamb category sales during the holidays, as well as throughout the year."

Retail sales data indicates that Lamb Leg is the top selling cut for the winter holiday season. In 2007 and across the last three holiday seasons, Lamb Leg Whole Bone-In has been the top selling cut, with an average of more than 1.2 million pounds sold during the last two weeks of December. While Lamb Leg Whole Bone-In outsells other lamb cuts during the holiday period, sales data indicates that there are other cuts with significant sales during the last two weeks of December including:

*Lamb Shoulder Blade Chop Bone-In
*Lamb Leg Whole Boneless
*Lamb Loin Chop Bone-In
*Lamb Foreshank Bone-In

ALB, which is presently working with retailers to merchandise fresh American lamb in order to increase demand among consumers, is offering retailers valuable information on its Web site, such as merchandising tips, seasonal trends, point-of-sale information, nutritious and lamb recipes.

Wortman said the organization recognizes that both retailers and consumers are not familiar with the many different lean meal options available with fresh American lamb products.
"We have developed many resources and educational pieces and have made them easily accessible to retailers so they can educate their customers and best merchandise American lamb products and increase demand."

For more information, visit www.AmericanLambRetail.com.