Joyce Campbell is never far from the top of the trade at Lairg.
While she was well pleased with her prices this year, she is very keen to make sure her lamb income stays within the local community.
She has 800 ewes at Armadale in Caithness running over 5,500 acres.
“It is very important to spend with a conscience and make sure that local businesses and trades benefit,” she said.
“It has to cut both ways, however.
“I was in the Tesco store in Thurso last week and was annoyed to see only six packs of Scotch Lamb in the middle of shelves stacked with New Zealand product.
“The Scotch lamb chops were priced at £14 per kg and the NZ at £7.70.
“As soon as I got home I wrote to the local Tesco manager and to Tesco head office to complain.
“I posted the story on Facebook and was astonished to hear back from a lady in Gisburn, New Zealand, who said she was buying home product in her local store for the exact equivalent of £7.70 per kg.
“There is something wrong when NZ lamb can be sold in Thurso for exactly the same price as in its homeland,” she said.
The happy postscript, however, is that when Joyce went back to the Thurso Tesco at the weekend the manager came up to her and shook hands before taking her to see the shelves, now stocked with Scotch product at £7.70 per kg with a smaller quantity of NZ lamb at £14 per kg an exact reversal of the position only a few days earlier.
A small victory perhaps but a very significant one nonetheless.