Weekday roast dinner sales are on the rise

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and data, insight and consultancy company Kantar Worldpanel conducted research into the Sunday favourite and found more roasts were being eaten during the week.

Families ate 1.4 billion roast dinners, which is 0.6% more than the previous year. However, Sunday’s share dropped to below half, covering 49% of all roast meals, showing how much society has changed over the past three decades.

The numbers were released as AHDB Beef & Lamb launched its third “Why wait ‘til Sunday?” television advertising campaign, highlighting the versatility of lamb and beef mini roasts.

The advert launches later this month (24 October) and aims to focus on smaller households to showcase the mini roast as the perfect midweek meal, which AHDB claims is easy to prepare and cook.

Growing awareness

Head of Beef & Lamb domestic marketing Nick White said: “The mini roast campaign aims to grow awareness of the category, influence consumers’ purchasing habits and build on the success of last year’s activity by focusing on a more defined target audience.

“By targeting smaller households that are often busy and don’t necessarily have time for the traditional Sunday roast, we can really encourage them to see that enjoying a tasty roasting joint of beef or lamb doesn’t have to be time-consuming, inconvenient or a hassle.

“This strategic promotional campaign is just one of the many activities that AHDB Beef & Lamb is focusing on to create consumer demand for quality-assured beef and lamb.”

This year, the campaign targets young couples, aged 25 to 34, through online activity, PR and press advertising to run alongside the television adverts.

The target audience will be encouraged to try the mini roast as the ideal date-night meal, meaning they can make time for each other in the week.

Mini break prize

The development team at AHDB Beef & Lamb is working with multiple food retailers and processors in a bid to support the campaign, along with farm and food standards scheme, Red Tractor.

Red Tractor will be offering consumers a chance to “win a mini break with a mini roast” as part of the television campaign and on-pack activity in stores.

Last year, the campaign was seen by 22 million households and has had positive halo effect on the wider beef and lamb roasting category of £11m, suggesting people also bought other lamb and beef joints.

In September, pub chain JD Wetherspoon announced it was getting rid of roasts from its menus​ in order to focus on its core menu offer and customers took to social media to vent their thoughts.

In the same month, licensee of the Robin Hood pub in Leigh, Greater Manchester, Nick Bennett, gave advice on how to make the most of your Sunday lunch offer​.