Royal wedding boost for meat sales
A COMBINATION of unseasonably good weather and the royal wedding sparked a boom in demand for some British meat.
The extra time off and good weather seemingly prompted people up and down the country to host barbecues perhaps slightly earlier than normal. It meant sales of barbecue burgers and sausages were massively ahead of the equivalent period last year with more than 31,000 tonnes sold this year than at Easter 2010.
Figures from industry bodies the English Beef and Lamb Executive and the British Pig Executive showed that in total 15.3 per cent more burgers were sold, at 17,159 tonnes in total, and 9.8 per cent more sausages, or 31,581 tonnes.
Over that period, the actual value of the burgers sold increased by 17.2 per cent and 5.5 per cent for sausages. The combined value sales of burgers, grills and sausages over the period was £81.3m.