Burger King aiming to drive beef into China

A worrying situation appears to be brewing in Asia at the moment. Burger King, the world's second largest burger retailer, is aiming to expand its stake in the Chinese market. The fast food market in China is estimated to be only a $29 million industry however people believe this is set to grow considerably.

One of the problems faced by Burger King when expanding in the Chinese market is that the Chinese consumer much prefers chicken. Whilst Burger King has adapted it's menus towards chicken products it hopes to piggy back the marketing McDonalds have already undertaken in China to promote beef. This has been carried out through adverts such as the 'Feel the Beef' campaign aiming to promote the sexy Western view of beef. Apparently this advertising has already had some success in changing the views of beef in China (see Economist article).

Where the worry arises is with the potential huge increase in methane (a well know greenhouse gas) from the cows needed to produce all the additional beef for the Whoppers and Big Macs pressed upon the giant population of China. Currently cows account for 40% of methane globally which when added to the fact that methane is 20 times worse for climate change that CO2 emissions, makes the potentially huge addition to the 1.5 billion cattle worldwide a very scary prospect.

Once again there is a massive short falling in the awareness of the impact of eating large quantities of beef. A recent survey by the consultancy firm, McKinsey, found that whilst 'eating less beef' was the third best way for people to reduce their emissions only 3% of the survey respondents ranked it as such (the top two methods are drive a more fuel-efficient car and improve home insulation).

As seen from the excerpt from the BBC's Bloom website in the previous post, eating less meat (and beef in particular) can have a profound difference on climate change. So there needs to be a significant drive towards this goal and clearly promoting beef to such a potentially massive market as China definitely does not seem like the right direction to move in and appears . However on our own small scale if people can change their eating habits the whole planet can benefit.

To finish here are some recommendations for changing your eating habits:

• Eat less meat!
  
• Eat more chicken and pork - meats with the lowest climate impact because they come from animals that don't burp methane, research suggests
• Eat local meat if possible to avoid emissions from transport
• Consider soya as an alternative to dairy