Safeway turned its Woking store café into a fine-dining restaurant for a night as part of a promotion for lamb. Supplier HM Bennett and Safeway management said they were pleased with customer response to the event. HM Bennett senior sales manager Graham Penny said: "Most consumers these days don't have much experience of lamb, but when they get the opportunity they like the product if the quality is high." The positive results of Safeway's Woking promotion are backed by data from the National Food Survey and Taylor Nelson Sofres, which shows that since the mid 1990s the market has been recovering from a previous low. However, shoppers' unfamiliarity with lamb means lamb needs direct promotion, such as instore tastings. HM Bennett is also looking to the opportunity provided by serveover counters for creating demand at the chiller and freezer cabinets. The company, part of the Randall Parker Group, supplies 70% of Safeway's lamb. Its new season West Country lamb will be going through more than 30 Safeway stores tomorrow (March 17). Safeway reports that its counter staff find lamb promotions can yield quick, lucrative results. They also report that consumer demand for pork is falling. This confirms the message coming from consumer market research data which hints at a problem in the retail fresh pork market, and suggests that latent consumer demand for lamb is beginning to turn into unexpectedly buoyant sales. {{MEAT }}

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