r/Shortages • u/SVAuspicious • 1d ago
Retail & Consumer Ground lamb
Apparently there is a shortage of ground lamb due to market shifts (more people buying it) and a reduction in exports from AU and NZ. Flocks in the US are down (I didn't dive into causation for that).
Here is my story. I'm in Annapolis MD. Ground lamb was readily available at Giant Food (regional chain), Safeway, and Aldi as well as more expensive places. Last year it was $5/lb. Then Giant and Safeway dropped it. Not out of stock. Dropped it. Aldi still carried it at $6/lb (Aldi as cheapest is marketing hype - I always check them and lots of places but Aldi rarely turns out to be cheapest. Aldi has now dropped ground lamb as well. We can get ground lamb at Whole Foods and Fresh Market for $15/lb. We'll do without.
My wife went to NJ to spend several days with her father (90). I cast a wider net along her route home. ShopRite in NJ has it for $9.50/lb. Acme in DE for $11/lb. Food Lion in DE and MD have it for $9/lb. Fortunately the Food Lion in the town where my wife stopped for lunch had it in stock. We bought their last three. It's a little expensive but no more than what we pay for tuna and salmon at Sam's Club. We'll just freeze it for special dinners.
We've seen market shifts affect price before on chicken thighs, chicken wings, brisket, and oxtail. Changes in exports from other countries (imports to the US) definitely leads to out of stock.
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u/Pontiacsentinel 1d ago
Aldi still has it, $7.99 Mid-Atlantic region. It does sell out periodically but I can still get it there as of two days ago.
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u/SVAuspicious 1d ago
Thanks. It doesn't show up on the website for our Aldi, and the last time I was in there a couple of weeks ago the store manager told me it had been dropped from inventory.
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u/jennibear310 1d ago
I’m thankful our local market also has Venison ($8lb) and Bison ($10lb).
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u/HappyAnimalCracker 1d ago
My local used to carry bison. I miss it. Just about the yummiest meat there is, IMO.
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u/Spookytuke 8h ago
At Kroger I have been getting discounted lamb burgers- 4 patties/ 1lb of meat total for around 4.50$ . Marked down from $12
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u/Mother-Ad-806 8h ago
Costco has it for $20/3lbs in NJ.
Check out hallal markets or African markets. They will carry more lamb. You can also contact a hallal butcher about getting a whole lamb with ground.
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u/bikumz 14h ago
There are plenty of places by you that have lamb widely available locally. Few places off the top of my head like Westminster have farms that often advertise availability of lamb.
This is just the time in my experience lot of Greeks doing cookouts and such so lamb around me is in fairly short supply end of summer time. All the Greeks I know doing cookouts
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u/SVAuspicious 13h ago
Westminster MD is not close to Annapolis MD. Not only is it far, but you have to use the Baltimore beltway to get there which is a nightmare. A little poking shows prices that are extreme.
As I wrote, there is ground lamb in Annapolis at $15/lb (cheaper than most of the prices I see in Westminster).
My experience with farm meat in MD is that they use amateurs to butcher the meat and the product isn't very good.
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u/bikumz 13h ago
My apologies. I meant in relation to NJ being close since that’s where you were comparing prices to.
I paid about 14 dollars a pound for ground or at least I did when I bought earlier this year if my memory was correct. Quality was great to me. I don’t buy ground lamb often so maybe I’m just not informed enough. More of beef or pork person which I’ve had very good luck with from farms. A bit of luck with rabbits as well but that was so long ago cannot comment on current quality.
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u/SVAuspicious 13h ago
I see. Westminster is out of the way even coming down 95 from NJ (visiting her father). My wife comes down 301. We paid $5/lb for ground lamb for a long time. It went up this year and then started dropping from inventory. We paid $8/lb at Food Lion in DE - same price in Stevensville in MD but my wife had already stopped for lunch in Middletown DE.
$14/lb is more than we'd spend.
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u/Derrickmb 7h ago
Eventually…. People grow lambs locally and the problem is solved.
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u/SVAuspicious 6h ago
They cost more and aren't as good. Fresh is lovely but farmers--at least these farmers aren't good butchers. The grinds are inconsistent (fat content varies in the batches) and the solid cuts are poor. Bone shards throughout.
I took butchery classes from the local butcher before he went out of business. I'm by no means professional. Most of my butchering is cutting whole pork loin into chops. Once a year or so a local hunter has me break down a deer. I'm still better than these farmers.
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u/Derrickmb 6h ago
If you can learn to win a Grammy you can learn to be a butcher
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u/SVAuspicious 6h ago
It really isn't hard. Steady hand, good knife skills, and attention to detail.
My butcher friend said I did well and some of the cuts I made in class ended up in his display case for sale. I'm proud of that.
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u/Foggywhim 1d ago
Start buying from your local farms