Lamb Summit Pushes Industry Members to Take Action

The second American Lamb Summit kicks off August 8 in East Lansing, MI. Its sponsors, the American Lamb Board (ALB) and Premier 1 Supplies, say to expect to be challenged and pushed out of the status quo.

“My experience has convinced me that no product is so good that it can’t be improved. Industry members have good intentions…but boasting about US Lamb is not always helpful. Better to focus on what needs to be done to improve it,” says Stan Potratz, founder of Premier 1 Supplies and past member of the ALB.

“We’ve gained a huge amount of knowledge in the past 2 to 5 years that tells us what lamb quality issues are most important to fix. Our goal with the Lamb Summit is to share ideas, educate, and provide support to producers who want to not only survive in this industry, but thrive,” according to ALB Chairman Peter Camino.

The capacity crowd won’t be spending a lot of time in typical presentations. They will be sampling lamb like a consumer taste panel would do, witness the use of ultrasound to measure muscle quality in live lambs, go into the Michigan State University (MSU) Meat Lab to evaluate lamb carcasses, and testing their skills at visually assessing animal quality with and without the aid of genetic data.

And there’s more … pricing lamb for direct sale to consumers, topline information from a checkoff study measuring lamb’s carbon footprint, and even cookery education.

Michigan may be the perfect case study on how the American Lamb industry is changing, and how there’s viability in distinct market segments because of its significant finishing and packing industry focused on the traditional market, while the Detroit metro region is home to one of the largest non-traditional lamb markets, says Richard Ehrhardt, PhD, who is senior extension specialist-small ruminants at Michigan State University.

If you aren’t attending, the ALB will be posting updates on its Lamb Checkoff Facebook pageduring the Summit. The Lamb Summit online has conference information and will be updated with presentations and reports. It is also working with leading ag media to share information during and following the Summit, such as the Western Ag Network, Ag Information Network, RFD-TV news, and more. However, there is no livestream of the conference.