Burger King debuting reduced-methane beef
Formula for cattle diet includes lemongrass supplement, but cattle industry calls study “small and poorly conceived.”
In what it says is an effort to address a core industry challenge — the environmental impact of beef — Burger King is debuting a reduced-methane emissions beef Whopper sandwich, which is made with beef sourced from cows that emit less methane.
Burger King cited a U.N. Food & Agriculture Organization figure that livestock are responsible for approximately 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
To help tackle this environmental issue, Burger King brand partnered with top scientists to develop and test a new diet for cows that, according to initial study results, reduces cows’ daily methane emissions by as much as 33% per day, on average, during the last three to four months of their lives.
The formula for this new diet is open source and fairly simple to implement, the study said. Preliminary tests suggest that adding 100 g of lemongrass leaves to the cows’ daily veterinary-prescribed diet during the last four months helps them release less methane as they digest their food.
“This initiative is part of our Restaurant Brands for Good framework. At Burger King, we believe that delicious, affordable and convenient meals can also be sustainable,” said Fernando Machado, global chief marketing officer of Restaurant Brands International. “We are making all our findings public. This an open-source approach to a real problem. If the whole industry — from farmers, meat suppliers and other brands — joins us, we can increase scale and collectively help reduce methane emissions that affect climate change.”
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