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The No. 6 Burger was introduced at Vancouver, Wash.-based Burgerville LLC a few years ago. The fast-casual brand created an initiative with the goal of making the Pacific Northwest the healthiest region in the U.S. through “trust, transparency, innovation and partnerships” including regenerative agriculture.
The burger launched at 11 locations, where it is still available during the pandemic, and was named after carbon’s atomic number, 6. It’s made from 100% locally grown and produced ingredients, including beef grazed on grass from organic-matter-rich soil with the capacity to store carbon rather than release it into the atmosphere to build greenhouse gas.
The brand’s director of strategic initiatives, Hillary Barbour, said “for someone to walk into a Burgerville and be able to bite into a delicious, locally sourced, 100% grass-fed/grass- finished burger, with premier local cheese and a bun that has healthy whole grains and also comes from locally grown and milled wheat and is produced by a legacy Northwest bread bakery, all for $7.95 – Well, I think that’s pretty groundbreaking,” when she spoke with Nation’s Restaurant News in January 2020
In January of this year, Starbucks released new goals to be “resource positive” and announced plans to reduce water, waste and carbon emissions by 2030, such as adding more plant-based beverages to the menu. The chain is also aiming to produce more fresh water than it consumes.
The Seattle, Wash.-based company’s CEO Kevin Johnson announced a 2030 target for meeting the following goals: a 50% reduction in carbon emissions in Starbucks direct operations and supply chain; 50% of water withdrawal for direct operations and coffee production will be conserved or replenished with a focus on helping high-risk communities and basins; and 50% reduction in waste sent to landfills from stores and manufacturing.
In September, the company announced that every store in the U.S. and Canada had strawless lids as part of an earlier initiative to phase out straws at all locations.
In July of this year, Burger King released the Reduced Methane Emissions Beef Whopper at select restaurants across the country.
The ground beef comes from cattle that have had 100 grams of lemon grass added to their daily diet in the last four months of their lives, and preliminary tests indicate that that simple change could reduce methane emissions from cattle by up to 33%, according to Burger King.
Burger King worked with two scientists to develop and test the new cattle feed: Octavio Castelán of the Autonomous University at the State of Mexico, and Ermias Kebreab at the University of California at Davis.
The New York City-based fast-casual salad chain introduced carbon labeling to its menu earlier this year.
It uses a comparable measurement called the Carbon Dioxide Equivalent (CO2e) that can “compare the environmental impact of a carrot to a chicken” but technically is “kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent.”
According to Just Salad, “Carbon dioxide (CO2) accounts for most human-caused greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. But there are other greenhouse gases, so these are converted into the common unit CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent).”
These emissions are based on estimates assumed by the average carbon emissions from each ingredient. The chain says the transportation of low-emission items like fruits and vegetables and high-emission items like animal products are around 10% of all emissions.
Just last week, fast-casual chain Panera added carbon footprint labels to its menu. Using the new “Cool Food Meals” label, per the carbon footprint data from the World Resources Institute, about 55% of the menu at Panera will be labeled a Cool Food.
“The goal of this whole initiative was twofold: one it’s to educate consumers so they can understand that their food choices matter and they can have a positive impact,” said Sarah Burnett, vice president of food values, sustainability and public affairs at Panera Bread. “The second piece is to engage the rest of industry as we have led in the past with calorie labeling and clean food [….] collectively we can have a much bigger impact across the entire restaurant industry.”
