AS TURKEY is to Christmas, and haggis is to Burn's Night, so should Scotch Lamb be to St Andrew's Day.

With 2020's St Andrews Day looking likely to be a real stay-at-home affair, the Scottish sheep industry has this week put its collective shoulder to the wheel, pushing hard to make Scotch Lamb synonymous with the nation's annual celebration of its patron saint.

The ‘Lamb for St Andrews Day’campaign is a joint effort between members of the Institute of Auctioneers and Appraisers in Scotland, the National Farmers Union Scotland, Quality Meat Scotland, and the National Sheep Association Scotland.

“St Andrew’s Day is a great Scottish day but is often under-celebrated,” said United Auctions director Christopher Sharp. “We want to change that and make it into an occasion to celebrate with a great Scottish meat."

To pump-prime the appetite for St Andrew's lamb, auction marts have committed to donating prime lambs to community groups and organisations seeking to hold celebration dinners. Seven marts have already signed up to take part and donate lamb, including United Auctions, Caledonian, Aberdeen and Northern, Lawrie and Symington, Orkney Marts, Craig Wilson Ltd and C and D – but IAAS hopes others will come forward as the date approaches.

“Rated amongst the best in the world, Scotch Lamb is currently at its peak of seasonality,” said UA's George Purves, who originally set up the campaign alongside Willie Mitchell during their time on the Scottish Enterprise Rural Leadership Programme.

“We have been overwhelmed with the support for campaign over the last few years and this year we would like to see households, schools and businesses throughout Scotland get involved to help make Scotch Lamb PGI synonymous with St Andrew’s Day, just like haggis for Burns Night and turkey for Christmas.”

IAAS members will be contacting their 30,000 farming customers across Scotland to help spread the word, and each mart will be running a social media campaign. The other organisations involved will also be reaching out to communities and businesses to ensure lamb is on the menu for St Andrew’s Day.

“If farmers, businesses or organisations would like to get involved, we would encourage them to contact their local livestock market,” added IAAS executive director Neil Wilson.

As part of this drive, QMS has developed a range of recipes with celebrity chef which will be shared over social media and around auction marts. Speaking from QMS, marketing director Lesley Cameron said: “Due to Covid-19 restrictions, we are unable to support any public events so this year we are encouraging families to visit their local butcher or Scotch Lamb stockist, purchase Scotch Lamb and get creative by trying a variety of dishes with different cuts of lamb at home.

“We have turned the winter efforts of our Make It Scotch Lamb campaign towards raising the profile of our industry stalwarts who work tirelessly to bring unbeatable high-quality Scotch Lamb to our shopping baskets.”

One potential candidate for a St Andrews Day centrepiece has been concocted by renowned chef Tony Singh MBE – a Scotch Lamb curry infused with malt whisky – which will be revealed in the lead up to St Andrew’s Day on the Scotch Kitchen social channels.

Followers of the Scotch Kitchen Facebook page will be invited to enter a competition – running this week – to win the chance to take part in a virtual cook-a-long of the dish on Monday, November 23 with Tony, Mr Purves, and Scottish food influencers Foodie Quine, The Wee Food Blogger and Perthshire Foodie.