Wahaca: ‘less but better’ meat to reduce emissions by 9%

Mexican chain beefs up its regenerative sourcing to slim down its total carbon footprint. David Burrows reports.

Carbon cuts. Two years ago, in April 2023, Wahaca announced significant changes to its menu on the back of its carbon labelling scheme. Menus at the high street chain moved to 50% veg-based and all steak dishes – including the steak & cheese taco, one of the most popular – were removed. Only two beef dishes remained. This was change in the name of, well, climate change.

Steak in the ground. It was a brave move, as co-founder Thomasina Miers noted. “We wanted to look at a way of reducing the amount of meat dishes further, while still offering truly tasty options for those that still enjoy eating it. Doing the right thing for the planet is never a simple journey,” she added.

Better beefed up. In February, the Mexican-inspired restaurant chain announced another bold beef move: a shift to using only British regenerative beef. “We’ve always strived to make sure Wahaca customers can choose from an enticing array of delicious vegetarian dishes but we knew we could do better when it came to our beef,” Miers says.

From cuts to carcass. The cows are grass-fed and spend over 300 days outside each year in the UK, said Wahaca, adding that it “knows the farmers and farms where its British beef comes from”. The chain now buys 10 animals a week, compared to the 420 the beef used to come from. This is significant: ‘animal lives saved’ is gaining traction as a metric used to measure corporate progress on balancing their protein mix. 

Taste test. Using the full carcass rather than just certain cuts also helps cut emissions, as will the fact the animals are farmed regeneratively by members of Grassroots farming, a collective of regenerative farms that conform to a strict set of principles. Grassroots beef farmers are audited every year to ensure improvements in everything from water and air quality to soil health and biodiversity. Blind taste tests on the regenerative beef have also been successful.

Climate control. The beef has a 42.3% smaller footprint than the EU average (the so-called European beef value) as verified by MyEmissions and Farm Carbon Toolkit. Beef emissions are expected to fall 59.3% (compared to 2022), and total emissions by 9% as a result of the ‘less but better’ approach.

Less but better. “Wahaca sets a powerful example of responsible beef sourcing with their ‘less but better’ approach,” explains Juliane Caillouette-Noble, managing director at The Sustainable Restaurant Association. The ‘less’ part comes from reducing the number of beef dishes on the menu and – crucially – by buying half a carcass at a time, making use of multiple cuts rather than working with only the most popular. This means far fewer animals are needed to meet demand.

Honest mistake. You might recall Honest Burgers attempted something similar in 2023, buying whole carcasses from regenerative farms in the Grassroots community. It proved difficult; too difficult, as the chain tried to run restaurants and be a wholesaler (selling the parts of the carcass it didn’t need for burgers). Honest now pays a levy on every kilo of beef purchased from Grassroots farmers.

Wowhaca. Can the Mexican chain make a success of its new approach to beef supplies? “A big piece of it for me, was changing the menu and transitioning to ‘slow cooked’ beef that uses multiple (less desirable) cuts, which gives us greater carcass utilisation and the ability to source back to farm,” Carolyn Lum, the chain’s sustainability lead, tells us. Lum explains the need for a multi-faceted approach: “We have sourced ‘better beef’ with lower carbon emissions. But we’ve also reduced the number of dishes and keep pushing plant based menu options.”