These autumn months are host to one of Britain’s great food trade anomalies. Imagine two ships passing one another close to one of our great ports.

THESE AUTUMN months are host to one of Britain’s great food trade anomalies. Imagine two ships passing one another close to one of our great ports. In one there will be an export cargo of live British sheep, headed mainly for the European market. In the other, on its way to land in the UK, will be frozen cuts of lamb from New Zealand. The quantity of lamb we export amounts to 35-40 per cent of what we produce and the quantity we import from New Zealand is similar. It is a crazy world.

The reason is nothing more than national taste. Autumn sheepmeat from Britain hails from the hill country: smaller animals with stronger-tasting flesh – meat much loved by people in Mediterranean countries who pitch it against the powers of garlic, peppers and spice. British tastes for lamb – we long ago dismissed mutton as an historic nutritional necessity – veer towards the pale, terribly tender cuts from larger lowland sheep that are ready in spring and summer. So we do a swap – beneficial to New Zealand, not really so for us. Why do we not learn to love our little hill lambs, or find a way to freeze down our plentiful supply? This would have the added benefit of ending live exports (but that is another story).

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