The Best Time of Year to Eat Lamb Is Right Now!

August, September, October and November are unquestionably the best months of year to be buying lamb. Lamb at this time of year is lamb that was born last year. It is a well grown animal, it has size and structure, it has good muscle coverage, and equally importantly good fat coverage. Irrespective of cut, the prime lambs that we are currently purchasing have great colour, conformation, and evenness of fat cover.

I know I tend to repeat myself. Just ask my partner, she suffers it daily! But I am going to do it again. It's my mantra but it's a hill I will die upon. AGE IS FLAVOUR.

New season lamb, which we will start to see appearing in the marketplace again in late November and into December, is obviously a smaller carcass. It has a gut system that has not had long to develop from a milk-based diet to a grass-based diet. The texture is extremely tender; the flavour is subtle and delicate. Now that is some people's preference and that is great! There are no rules, and it is a seasonal product that we will absolutely stock.

But for me, time is a lamb's best friend because it allows flavour to develop.

The beautiful thing about this time of year is there is a relatively long season effectively when these older lambs are available.

In the warmer climate of Hawke's Bay and coastal Gisborne particularly, lambing by now will pretty much have concluded. Farmers in those parts of the country can make use of the warmer temperatures to lamb with reduced risk of cold snaps impacting them too severely with newborn lambs on the ground. They also have a need to be lambing early, so that they can get much of their new season lamb off their farms prior to Christmas. They can receive a premium for these lambs from processors, but these are also parts of the country that can get very dry post Christmas, so reducing stock numbers is important from a farm and pasture management point of view.

We are seeing lambs frolicking in the paddock around Taupo now. Lambing is also well underway in The King Country and Northern Waikato.

The last farms to lamb in the North Island traditionally are the most exposed areas, the high country inland from the Hawke's Bay and East Coast, around Taihape and the wider Rangitkei, and the famed station country on the Taihape to Napier Rd.

As an aside, if you have never driven this road, find a nice day, and do it! It is simply stunning, winding its way through some of the North Island's most beautiful countryside. You will cross the Rangitikei River not far downstream from where it appears from its bush headwaters, driving past several of our most iconic sheep stations, Erewhon, Otupae and Ngamatea. Next you'll enter into the mighty Kaweka ranges, before dropping down into Hawke's Bay. You'll exit into the Gimblett Gravel country where a choice of wineries awaits to reward your driving efforts!

So, yes, age is flavour. And now my gripe. These lambs that are approaching a year old are not far from cutting their first two adult teeth. It is at this point they become known as a Hogget, or, unremarkably, a two tooth. You will very rarely find a farmer who eats lamb, they will choose Hogget every time. Spoiler alert: It's the flavour!

Hogget is a stunning product. So why is it not readily and regularly available? One reason. The export driven commodity lamb market that has evolved over the decades, and that unfortunately our farmers are beholden to. Our export markets want smaller, light carcass lambs, so that's what our farmers must produce. Although the category 'Hogget' theoretically exists, in reality, if a farmer sends lambs to be processed that have cut two teeth, they are penalised. The payment they receive equates to a payment for Mutton, between a third to a half of the value received per kg for lamb.

So our farmers are quite literally disincentivised and actually penalised for producing a spectacular product.

That is quite simply crazy. I have plans that in the near future, as the result of relationships developed with some exceptional local farmers, we will have secured hoggets as a product that we can have available for much of the year. Watch this space.

For now, enjoy the older late season lamb that we have available, lamb that is within weeks of cutting those two teeth, lamb with body, lamb with flavour!