Fast food giant Burger King faced backlash from the agriculture community when it announced Tuesday it was changing the diet of its cattle to by adding lemon grass. BK says the goal is to reduce a cow’s daily methane emissions by 33 percent.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which represents more than 175,000 cattle producers and feeders, responded to the chain as well.
Here is the full statement from NCBA CEO Colin Woodall.
Members of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association are disappointed by the release of Burger King’s #CowsMenu campaign today. The nation’s burger restaurants can, and many of them do, play a vital role in helping improve beef’s sustainability and reducing its environmental footprint.
Unfortunately, Burger King has chosen a different path, relying on kitschy imagery that misrepresents basic bovine biology - cattle emissions come from burps, not farts - and on the potential impact of a single ruminant nutrition study that was so small and poorly conceived, it was dismissed by many leading NGOs and beef industry experts.
The U.S. is already a leader in sustainable beef production. The EPA attributes just 2 percent of greenhouse gas emissions to the American cattle industry, and yet cattle farmers and ranchers remain committed to continuous improvement and producing beef more sustainably.
America’s cattle producers are disappointed that Burger King has decided to follow a path that is misaligned with those who are already making real-world efforts to reduce beef’s environmental footprint, opting instead to score easy points with consumers by launching a misleading public relations campaign.