Study Of Demand For Meat In U.K.

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30977, 5 February 1966, Page 19

Study Of Demand For Meat In U.K.

The retail consumption of lamb and mutton in Britain is very responsive to changes in the retail prices charged, says Professor B. P. Philpott, professor of agricultural economics at Lincoln College and director of the agricultural economics research unit at the college, commenting on the publication by the unit of “An Analysis of the Retail Demand for Meat in the United Kingdom” by himself and Miss Mary Matheson. “For every one per cent change in retail prices in the years since 1955, there was a 1.4 per cent change in consumption in the opposite direction” he says. “Consumption was also very responsive to changes in the price of non-carcase meat, and, to a lesser extent, to changes in the price of poultry. The effect of rising consumers’ incomes on demand for lamb and mutton was only moderate, especially by comparison with poultry, for which it appears that there is a rapid rise in demand when standards of living rise. “Of salient importance in this analysis is the measurement of very signflcant seasonal shifts in demand,” Professor Philpott says. “The demand for lamb and for poultry rises signficantly in the period April-September

over and above the effects of price or income changes. Beef and pork display similar seasonal demand shifts in the period October-March. Accurate measurement of these seasonal demand shifts in conjunction with price and income elasticities is important for devising optimum shipping programmes.” Professor Philpott says that further research on meat demand is in progress at the agricultural economic research unit In particular a much finer analysis, specifically related to New Zealand lamb, is under way, but there are difficulties of availability of data.

“There are no published statistics covering, in the same profuse detail as the British National Food Survey, the final consumers of our lamb in Britain, and it is high time the authorities turned their attention to filling this glaring gap in our market information,” he says.