Sheep Industry News March 2022

Video Sales, Ethnic Market Top La m b Council Agenda

KYLE PARTAIN Sheep Industry News Editor P anel discussions on video sales and working with ethnic market buyers dominated much of the Lamb Council’s time in San Diego. While neither is new to the industry, each offers growth opportunities – as well as some additional head aches – for sheep producers. Video sales really took off during the pandemic. “I don’t know if it’s right for everybody, but it’s another tool,” said Wyoming producer Vance Broadbent. Montana producer Henry Hollenbeck – who also oversees video sales for Northern Livestock Video Auction – said its important for producers to deal with a video sales representative that can be trusted. “The reps have to take pride in representing lambs correctly for both the seller and the buyer,” he added. Dave Johnson of Equity Cooperative Livestock Sales said video offers producers a consistent way to market animals at reduced costs to more competition. "I've been doing this for 25 years and I can count on one hand the number of wrecks I've had," Johnson said. "I vet both buyers and sellers. If you have quality people on both sides and someone in the middle who knows how to work through the issues, there's no problem you can't solve." But there are additional issues that come into play with video sales as opposed to hauling your own sheep to a live market. For instance, producers selling at video auctions need to deal with the transportation and logistics of getting those animals to the buyer. "Buyers don't always know what kind of terrain those sheep are going to be in," Hollenbeck said. "Talk to your reps about all of the logistics." A panel on ethnic markets followed. Benny Cox of Texas and Don Hawk of Ohio joined Johnson on the second panel. "What is the ethnic market," Johnson asked? "Anything that isn't the traditional market. And if you're going to sell to ethnic buyers, you'd better know what they want." Ethnic buyers tend to purchase smaller sheep – with a preference toward hair sheep – in smaller lots than traditional buyers, Cox said. "Our big hair sheep producers don't get to load two to three trucks in a day and send them on their way," he added. "The average consignment at my sale barn (in San Angelo, Texas) is 27 head. The market is so fragmented that it's hard to deliver large groups of

lambs." An Ohio lamb feeder, Hawk sees an industry that often isn't prepared to sell to the ethnic market despite its dominant presence in the industry. "I see a lot of people who want to sell to that market, but don't want to do the research and the work to produce the right product," he said. "They think they'll use Suffolks or Hamps, and that's not what these buyers want." However, that might be changing. The ethnic market is growing from 2 to 10 percent a year, said Johnson, adding that assimilation among the immigrant population might one day mean fewer differ ences in their buying preferences. "The younger generation will go to the store and buy a leg or a rack," Cox added. But, for now, comparing traditional and ethnic markets is like comparing "apples and peanuts, not apples and oranges." Dale Woerner, Ph.D., of Texas Tech University updated the council on the use of Rapid Evaporative Ionization Mass Spectrom etry to differentiate lamb flavor based on consumer preference. The REIMS technology creates a real-time chemical fingerprint that allows food scientists to overlay the fingerprints of different sheep (old vs. young, grass fed vs. corn fed, etc.) and group them into flavor performance profiles. "Meat science is nothing new," Woerner said. "We're just learning more and more every day." REIMS could soon be used in the processing plants to differenti ate lamb flavors in real time, categorize lamb by flavor intensity and even accurately evaluate the value of a lamb carcass. Speaking about 10 days before the U.S. Department of Agri culture/National Agricultural Statistics Service released its 2022 Sheep Inventory Report, Tyler Cozzens of the Livestock Marketing Information Center predicted that total inventory would be down in his presentation to the Lamb Council. He speculated an increase in mature sheep slaughter would be partly to blame, thanks to high meat prices and ongoing drought. He was certainly correct about sheep numbers, as NASS reported a 2 percent drop in the total American sheep inventory. He also called for slight increases in slaughter lamb and feeder lamb prices in 2022, followed by drops in 2023. "There's a lot of optimism, and there should be," he said. "These prices staying as strong as they have for so long bodes well." The council also heard an update on strong demand by consum ers from Megan Wortman of the American Lamb Board.

March 2022 • Sheep Industry News • 17