Greece news: How the Greek debt crisis affected the price of your Sunday lunch

Uncertainty over the outcome of the Greek crisis is dragging down the value of the euro against the pound

The ongoing debt crisis in Greece is having an unlikely effect on the price of your Sunday lunch. (Rex)

The ongoing debt crisis in Greece is having an unlikely effect on the price of your Sunday lunch.

Uncertainty over the outcome of the Greek crisis is dragging down the value of the euro against the pound. This is making it more expensive for UK lamb producers to export their meat to Europe, driving down the price of lamb in the UK, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The price of a kilogram of lamb has been slashed from £4.11 to £3.50 in the last month alone.

Just 2.78 million kilograms of lamb were exported to the EU in May, the lowest amount since August 2007.

This has dragged lamb prices down by 23 pence over the last year to the lowest price in five years, according to data from Mintec, a commodities analytics firm.

The euro has lost 10 per cent of its value against the pound in the last year as the Greece crisis has unravelled. Fears that Greece could leave the eurozone and destabilise the currency further have contributed to its decline.

But Greece is not the only reason the euro is trading poorly. The ECB’s bond buying program has flooded the eurozone with cash, contributing further. Supermarkets are also battling discount stores such as Aldi and Lidl for customers and slashing prices on produce such as lamb as a result.

The lamb market tends to feel this price pressure more than other sectors, because the UK in the largest exporter of lamb in Europe. Europe accounted for more than 80 per cent of the UK’s lamb exports in April alone. To make matters even worse, the UK’s big non-European competitor, New Zealand, got its crop in earlier than usual this year.

Bad news for farmers, but good news for Sunday lunches!