A PILOT scheme has shown that sorting lambs before selling can bring significant financial benefits for producers.

Overall, sorted lambs averaged an extra £2.10 a lamb in the project, run by the English Beef and Lamb Executive's Better Returns Programme at Skipton auction mart.

One of the UK's leading meat processors also reported that the number of over-fat lambs bought from the market more than halved during the sorting trial.

"These results demonstrate a clear financial advantage for producers who sort their lambs," said Chris Lloyd, BRP project manager.

"Auction markets have a wide selection of buyers looking for a specific type of lamb.

"What they don't want is mixed batches, which reduce their efficiency.

"Buyers who present their lambs evenly to match buyers' needs have more chance of commanding a premium for what they sell."

Mr Lloyd said the news that one of the UK's leading meat processors also saw a substantial drop in the number of over-fat (3H and above) lambs bought from Skipton proved the whole lamb chain could benefit in terms of reducing production costs.

Other benefits highlighted by the BRP project included a higher proportion of hill lambs attracting premium prices, and an increasing producer awareness of what buyers wanted in terms of conformation and fat class.

The five-week project took place at Skipton in October/November last year. BRP staff offered to sort producers' lambs into four categories before sale, according to final carcase classification. These were: blue: (2-3L), yellow (3H-4L), red heads (store lambs/underfinished lambs) P-1 and red rumps (overfat 4H+).

The sheep were then sold through the ring as normal, and the prices recorded and compared with the average price of non-sorted sheep at Skipton for that week.

Price feedback showed that, during the project, blue lambs achieved an average premium of 5p/kg, equating to an extra £2.10 a lamb over the non-sorted average price.

Lambs marked yellow attracted an average premium of 3p/kg (£1.26 per lamb) and red lambs, which were deemed to be outside mainstream market specifications, saw an average price deduction of 2p/kg.

A producer selling a pen of 100 sorted lambs split according to the national breakdown of BRP's blue, yellow and red classifications, would achieve a premium of £172.51 for sorting his lambs according to the project findings.

Feedback from the meat processor showed that, in the eight weeks before the BRP sorting project, an average of 26.4pc of lambs bought from Skipton killed out at 3H and above. During the project, this fell to 10.8pc.

* The BRP's prices were calculated on a 42kg liveweight lamb

The calculations for the premium price for a pen of 100 lambs were based on MLC figures from the 2003 classification breakdown for England of 73pc lambs in BRP's blue category, 20pc of lambs in the yellow category and 7pc of lambs in the red category.