This week, The New Zealand Farmers Weekly reported Marks and Spencer had "freed itself from the Primera lamb procurement preference with Rissington Breedline and Silver Fern Farms".
In a letter to Rissington Breedline, the chain's agricultural manager, Steve McLean, said it would not be pursuing a single-breed procurement policy for M&S core lamb supply in either New Zealand or the UK, the report said.
But when contacted, SFF chief executive Keith Cooper said it was "nothing really new".
The chain had been taking more than just Primeras over the past couple of years and had never been exclusively Primera.
In 2007, SFF joined Rissington Breedline, a Hawkes Bay-based genetics company, in offering sheep farmers contracts to supply lamb to M&S.
The chain was working towards having Primera only but the bottom line was it could not get enough to meet requirements.
That was due to a combination of people not necessarily wanting to go on to contract terms, as they could see more money on the spot market, and the growth of Primera genetics not perhaps being as large as was necessary to service demands, Mr Cooper said.