Burger King is one of the largest fast food chains in the world, known for their flame-grilled burgers. But where exactly does all that beef come from? As one of the biggest purchasers of beef worldwide, Burger King has complex supply chain operations to source their meat.
Overview of Burger King’s Beef Supply
Burger King sources their beef from multiple large beef suppliers around the world. Their main suppliers are:
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Tyson Foods – A major American meat processor that produces beef, chicken and pork Tyson is one of Burger King’s largest beef suppliers in the US.
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Cargill – Another huge American meat producer that provides beef to Burger King. They have 36 facilities that process beef in the U.S. alone.
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JBS – The largest meat processing company in the world, based in Brazil. JBS has processing plants across the Americas and provides beef to Burger King locations globally.
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Marfrig Global Foods – Another Brazilian meat company that is a major supplier of beef patties to Burger King, especially in Latin America.
Sourcing Beef for U.S. Locations
For Burger King locations in the United States, most of their beef comes from American cattle. Tyson Foods and Cargill are two of their biggest domestic beef suppliers.
The cattle are raised on ranches and feedlots across the country, predominantly in the Great Plains and Midwest regions. Major cattle states that Burger King sources from include Texas Kansas Nebraska and Oklahoma.
Once cattle reach 18-22 months of age and 1,200-1,350 pounds, they are sent to be processed. Burger King’s suppliers like Tyson have large beef processing facilities where cattle are slaughtered and processed into cuts of beef, like ground chuck and Angus steak.
The beef is then shipped to Burger King’s distributors and on to their restaurants around the country. The beef used for their patties and other menu items is usually fresh, not frozen.
International Beef Supply
For its restaurants outside the U.S., Burger King sources most of its beef within the country or region where the restaurant is located. This reduces transportation costs and import fees.
For example, beef for BK locations in Europe primarily comes from European cattle suppliers, like Vion Food Group in Netherlands. In Latin America, Brazil’s JBS and Marfrig supply most stores in that region.
Burger King’s Chinese locations source all their beef from within China. Australian cattle provides beef for their restaurants in New Zealand and Australia.
The exception is when Burger King enters new markets, they will initially import American beef until they set up local suppliers. For example, when BK opened in Italy in 1999, they imported U.S. beef until they established domestic Italian suppliers a few years later.
Focus on Responsible Sourcing
In recent years, Burger King has tried to focus more on ethical and sustainable sourcing of their beef. They state they are working closely with suppliers to ensure humane treatment of cattle and reduce deforestation risks commonly associated with beef production.
Some of their initiatives include:
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Animal welfare audits of beef suppliers to ensure ethical treatment of cattle. This includes proper use of antibiotics and humane handling.
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A commitment to eliminate deforestation from their supply chain by 2030. This means working with suppliers to trace cattle back to point of origin.
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Exploration of plant-based burgers to reduce their environmental impact. In 2019 they launched the Impossible Whopper using plant-based meat.
Despite these efforts, some sustainability groups still criticize Burger King for not doing enough to reduce their environmental footprint or ensure cattle welfare across their vast supplier network. But they are making moves in the right direction.
The Bottom Line
When you bite into a Whopper or Bacon Cheeseburger, that beef most likely came from a major meat processor like Tyson Foods or Cargill in the U.S. or JBS in Brazil. Burger King sources beef locally as much as possible but relies on large multinational suppliers to keep their global restaurants stocked with flame-grilled patties. Going forward, they aim to make their complex beef supply chain more sustainable and ethical.
From pilots to progress
The environmental impacts of beef production range from deforestation to greenhouse gas emissions to water pollution and land degradation. Because beef is grown in almost every country, those impacts are global. And with beef consumption set to increase dramatically, they are certain to grow in the coming years. Even if McDonald’s achieves its own sustainability goals, it won’t have a huge impact on those damages; but the company hopes to become a model for the food industry.
In 2012, McDonald’s, in partnership with several NGOs, trade associations, ranchers and other retailers, launched the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, whose members are “committed to making a difference in the sustainability of their industry.” GRSB, in turn, spawned a dozen national and regional roundtables, from Australia to Argentina to the Americas, which focus on issues particular to their region.
GRSB spent much of its first decade simply wrangling members and building consensus. “It’s a lot of players, a lot of moving parts,” Ruaraidh Petre, the group’s executive director, told me from his office in Aberdeen, Scotland. “Getting a big industry with a lot of different stakeholders — some of whom, let’s be honest, are pretty conservative — to collaborate has been a fairly big chunk of work.”
In 2021, after nearly a decade, GRSB established a series of 2030 goals focusing primarily on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving land use and ensuring animal welfare. They’re voluntary and not overly ambitious. The climate goal, for example, aims for a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gases “of each unit of beef,” a relative goal that will likely be overwhelmed by the overall increase in beef consumption: Between now and 2030, the global appetite for beef is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 5.8 percent, according to Grand View Research. That pencils out to just over 40 percent aggregate growth over the next six years, more than enough to offset that 30 percent emissions cut. The industry has no absolute goal to reduce beef’s overall planetary impacts.
During the first couple of years after its 2014 announcement, McDonald’s engaged in a pilot project, working with the various regional roundtables “to define what principles and criteria were for sustainability across the sector,” said McColloch. The company said, in effect, “We’ll source some beef from those supply chains that are aligned with those principles and criteria.”
Between 2014 and 2016, McDonald’s started doing just that. It purchased a small portion of its beef from verified sustainable Canadian ranches. (Canada is one of the few countries with a program to certify beef sustainability.) That project involved nearly 9,000 head of cattle that produced about 300,000 pounds of beef, enabling McDonald’s to produce 2.4 million “sustainable” hamburger patties. That’s roughly one-tenth of a percent of the 2.5 billion burgers the company sells each year worldwide.
Among the project’s objectives: to bring the GRSB’s Principles and Criteria to life and to accelerate development of an industry-led beef sustainability framework.
“The indicators that McDonald’s were using in the pilot project were a starting point for the indicators that the [Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef] used in their certification process,” Greg Bowie, who raises Charolais cattle in Ponoka, Alberta, and who has served on CRSB’s board, told me. “They were very instrumental in building that trust between the livestock producers and the end users of our product.”
Starting in 2016, the company focused on building the industry infrastructure and a network of on-farm research programs to model what beef sustainability could look like. “We identified and prioritized 10 sourcing markets that were roughly 85 percent of our beef volume and said, ‘In all those markets, we’re going to have a farmer network, we’re going to set up flagship farms, and we’re going to pursue research on beef standability programs that are aligned with the GRSB criteria and principles,’” said McColloch. “And from every one of those markets, we will source some portion of beef from those supply chains.’”
The United States still consumes more meat than almost any other nation, but developing countries are starting to catch up.
How Burger King’s Hamburgers Are Made in a Factory | Hamburgers Factory Process
FAQ
Where does Burger King get there beef?
Does Burger King use real beef?
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Yahoohttps://www.yahoo.comHow Burger King’s Patties Are Actually Made – YahooOct 17, 2023 — Burger King has prioritized authenticity and transparency with their burgers from the beginning. According to their website, their patties are 100%
Where does Burger King get their produce from?
To ensure that each BURGER KING® restaurants receive fresh produce we work with local distributors, allowing us to serve the freshest produce to our guest.
Is Burger King using lab grown meat?
It’s called the “Impossible Whopper.” (Impossible Burgers and Beyond Meat burgers are already available in grocery stores.) The food chain isn’t the first to offer a lab-grown, plant-based patty option, but Burger King’s announcement is a very big deal.
Where does Burger King Beef come from?
Another version adds to this by saying that some of the beef is being purchased from South American. Burger King says this is nothing new and that it has been purchasing beef from Australia and New Zealand for years.
Are Burger King burgers authentic?
The quality of fast food meat has been questioned over the years, with many chains going the extra mile to address concerns. Burger King has prioritized authenticity and transparency with their burgers from the beginning. According to their website, their patties are 100% beef and have been flame-grilled since they first opened in 1954.