Burger King’s Sustainability Efforts: Barely Trying

Executive Summary

Increase in consumption of Beef is a major concern for United Nation these days. As its consumption not only focuses on manure generation but also on rising need of water and land resulting into climate warming emissions. Consumption of beef has alarming environment since ages as animal agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gases than the entire world’s transportation system combined.

The purpose of this study is to analyse how the leading global food chains are dealing with this problem and how they contribute in controlling the beef consumption. Leading food chain Burger King and McDonalds who has major customers of beef must work on sustainability. Over the years McDonalds has made great efforts to ensure sustainability whereas Burger King is still lagging on that note. As a leading brand Burger King must ensure deforestation free selling. Including several implementation options like serving of more fruit, vegetable and non- beef option. Also increasing energy efficiency in restaurants and encouraging consumers to recycle materials. Burger King being a leading global food chain can inspire environment friendly options worldwide by indulging themselves into global conversations around sustainability.

If such leading food chains initiate on non-beef options, massive control in beef production can be visible. Not only environment will be safe but intake of calories which human take by consuming beef will also be controlled. Climatic effects due to greenhouse gas can also be emitted.

Introduction

About Burger King

Burger King (BK) is an American international fast food restaurant franchise. Headquarters are located in the unincorporated area of Miami-Dade County, Florida, the firm was established in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a restaurant franchise based in Jacksonville, Florida. Since Insta-Burger King faced economic problems in 1954, its two Miami-based franchise owners David Edgerton and James McLamore bought the business and rebranded it 'Burger King. '

The predecessor to Burger King was founded in 1953 in Jacksonville, Florida, as Insta-Burger King. After visiting the McDonald brothers' original store location in San Bernardino, California, the founders and owners (Keith J. Kramer and his wife's uncle Matthew Burns), who had purchased the rights to two pieces of equipment called 'Insta-machines', opened their first restaurants. Their production model was based on one of the machines they had acquired, an oven called the 'Insta-Broiler'. This strategy proved to be so successful that they later required all of their franchises to use the device.

Still underperforming underneath McDonald's in profits and revenue growth, Burger King endured several transformations in ownership and corporate governance. In 1967 it was purchased by the Pillsbury Company, which in the late 1970s introduced Donald N. Smith, an ex-McDonald’s executive, who rejuvenated Burger King by widening the menu and stiffening franchisees ' influence. Pillsbury was purchased by the British business Grand Metropolitan (Grand Met) PLC in 1989. Upon its joint venture with the Irish brewer Guinness PLC in 1997, Grand Met became Diageo PLC. In 2002, Diageo sold Burger King to a syndicate of private equity financiers, such as the Texas Pacific Group, Bain Capital, and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. 3 G Capital, an investment firm operated by Brazilian billionaire Jorge Paulo Lemann, took over the company in a leveraged buyout in 2010. By 2012, shares of Burger King were presented to the public once more, but 3 G maintained a majority stake. In 2014, Burger King Worldwide combined with the Canadian doughnut and fast-food chain Tim Hortons, establishing a new parent business called Restaurant Brands International. Restaurant Brands International is now located in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, in what some pundits saw as a tax-avoiding 'commercial inversion' step.

Manufacturing Facility/ Service Area

Burger king’s restaurant support center and U. S. headquarters is situated in Miami, Florida and contains roughly 213,000 square feet that they lease. In May 2008, they expanded the Miami lease for their worldwide restaurant support center to September 2018 along with an option to extend it for a 5-year term. They are leasing premises for their EMEA headquarters in Zug, Switzerland and their APAC headquarters in Singapore.

Burger King South Africa (BKSA) launched the first-ever meat processing plant in the nation by setting up a joint enterprise with a local meat dealer and retailer.

The partnership will help the hamburger chain with its fast growth plans–both in SA and in the remainder of Africa.

Outstanding Meat is a very well-established family corporation that is 44 years old and the partners have dedicated to investing R50 m in a new plant at Elsies River in Cape Town.

As per Jaye Sinclair, BKSA's CEO, this fresh partnership is crucial to supporting the company's domestic supply cycle rollout with a loyal provider.

'We are assured that this development at Excellent Meat will generate many possibilities in this specific region as the plant will generate 60 to 70 tons of meat products per month,' said Hassen Adams, secretary of BKSA. 'This leads to about 700,000 patties per month. ' He mentioned that by 2015, the factory will be willing to generate 3 million patties per month to promote increasing demand.

Burger King SA is on schedule to supply most of its products from local vendors. More than 92 percent of its goods will be manufactured regionally by the close of this year.

Supplier Information

Restaurant Services, Inc. (RSI) is the BURGER KING system's autonomous product development and delivery company. RSI has been an instrumental partner for more than 2 decades working on behalf of BK ® hotels in the U. S. to ensure the highest feasible conditions for meat, packaging, advertising goods, materials, machinery, delivery facilities and more.

In other words, they aim to ensure that the best value supply for Burger King Carriers amounts to approximately $3 billion in product buys and delivery facilities annually. We ensure that these products travel efficiently from vendors through national delivery centres and each restaurant across the nation gets the right product in the right quantity at the perfect time.

RSI and Burger King are working together under a 1992 Operating Agreement outlining each company's corresponding functions and duties. As the proprietor of the brand, Burger king is accountable for creating brand policy, marketing projects, item requirements, quality of food and safety regulations, and vendors and dealers ' consent and rejection.

RSI provides Burger king restaurants in the U. S. as the exclusive supply chain management and delivery company. In order to help Burger King Companies function profitably, our primary obligation is to discuss business terms and conditions for a constant availability of specific products at the highest price. We make agreements with approved Burger King Providers in the U. S. for basically everything required to operate a restaurant, which include meals, packaging, machinery, and premium merchandise and delivery facilities.

Our perspective is to be the greatest purchasing and supply Chain Company in the food service industry and our objective is to ensure that Burger King Establishments are built, operated and maintained for the advantage of our employees at the best price and at defined quality norms.

To define price benefits and continually enhance supply chain effectiveness, we operate carefully with our employees, Burger King, meat and product suppliers, marketing organizations, machinery vendors, retailers and information system providers.

At RSI, we focus on strengthening an effective supply chain for the Burger King scheme and each day our actions are driven by the four primary fields of our company. They are,

• Food & Packaging
• Equipment & Facilities
• Distribution & Logistics
• Premiums & Promotional Items.

The TBL Impacts Created from the Identified Brand

What has been published and what is the justification from the organization

a) Burger King's Damning Environmental Impact Exposed:

According to a fresh study by advocacy organization Mighty Earth, the super fast-food retailer Burger King has been buying animal feed generated in soy plantations cut by the destruction of native trees in Brazil and Bolivia.

The official report by Mighty Earth highlighted the production process of Burger King by using global positioning technology, touring 28 soy plantations and studying local producers over 3,000 km.

The loss of agricultural soil has influenced sloths, jaguars, giant anteaters and other animals. For Burger King's providers Cargill and Bunge, the two agricultural traders working in the region, local landowners wiped out environmental destruction to raise soybeans.

Regrettably, the alternative of Mighty Earth to 'develop more soy and cattle on less soil' creates factory farms that are awful to animal care, human health and the climate.

In a study by The Union of Concerned Scientists last year, Burger King was also involved for attempting to maintain appropriate laws against importing its goods from farms selected for animal farming.

b) Burger King Must End Role in Deforestation:

Fast food huge Burger King plays a significant part in removing the delicate savannas and wetlands in Brazil, where various species of flora and fauna, including critically endangered species, flourish. Burger King has collaborated with damaging soybean businesses to produce their meats.

Soybean cultivation in Brazil clears an excess of soil. The soybeans are then marketed to businesses selling the soy to meat businesses, which in exchange supply their meat to Burger King. Burger King's links with these businesses must be severed. They help in the irreversible devastation of our surroundings by offering them industry.

Request that the fast food chain finish its relations with these firms and follow a more sustainable way of producing meal. Following is the petition letter written which targeted the CEO of burger king in accusation of deforestation.

Petition Letter:

Burger King helps to destroy the vulnerable atmosphere of Brazil. For soybean farms, which manufacture their products to businesses from which Burger King purchases their food, savannas and watersheds are being demolished.

Extinction is experiencing endangered flora and fauna and irreversible damage to the ecosystem. Burger King needs to be more viable. I call for it to sever its connections with these plantations of soybeans. So, this petition was signed by 536 people to raise hands against burger king to end the role of deforestation.

The organizational justifications on their impacts

Burger King, Incorporated / 3G Capital, produced an amazing cooperative step in the presence of environmental sustainability. They chose to prevent purchasing from a business that in the manufacturing of palm oil supposedly damages wetlands and forests.

According to the Press reports, Burger King 'quoted an autonomous review that discovered the farms had breached several laws, including growing in some peatland marshes and secondary woodlands,' and therefore had 'viable farming methods had not been implemented. ' Furthermore, Burger King said, 'These procedures are incompatible with our commercial accountability obligations. '

In a chapter called Positive Steps, Burger King's page says its obligation to move towards a more sustainable setting: “The best we do currently, the stronger our company will be in the future. We understand it can assist us handle danger from a sheer company perspective, improve staff morale and maintenance, reinforce brand loyalty, create confidence in the societies we work in, and immediately impact the end result such as energy efficiency and reducing waste. We also understand that before this becomes a manner of working, it must be a manner of reasoning. And the only method to achieve this is to better integrate it into our business. That's why our strategy is concentrated on four main fields – health, humans, environment and management – driven by stakeholders. ”

Globally, Burger King has dedicated to buying beef from vendors that only raises beef in an eco-accountable manner. As a consequence, none of our beef originates from rainforests that have lately been deforested.

This were some Burger King’s obligations regarding sustainability before in 2010 but now they have failed to achieve results. The above justifications depict that Burger King is on opposite path of sustainability and they had done lot of deforestation for beef consumption which gives best idea that they are barely trying in terms of sustainability.

Further Life Cycle Impacts Based on Our Knowledge

Fresh research discovered that the environmental consequences of beef manufacturing are considerably worse than that of milk, poultry, pork, and eggs. As per one professional, killing red meat would effectively have more effect on carbon emissions than leaving vehicles. Crop calories supplied to livestock for human consumption are adequate to satisfy the calorie requirements of 4 billion individuals, which is worrying because it has been predicted that we need to develop 70 percent more food by 2050. It is also accountable for about 20 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.

The production of beef was discovered to demand about 28 times more soil than the other classifications, 11 times more water, resulting in 5 times more greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, when they correlated beef with several other staples such as wheat and rice, the effects were even more apparent with this meat needing 160 times more soil and generating 11 times more emissions of greenhouse gases.

Plastic soda straws are not frequently recycled or reused, resulting in numerous environmental damages, especially when rejected wrongly, including damage to marine animals and visual pollution. Even if properly discarded, plastic straws can end up in incineration, producing elevated carbon emissions. These are environmental costs as they are witnessed throughout civilization and are not taken into account for within the plastic straws market value. Drinking straws suppliers do not have rewards to compensate for the negative externality’s costs.

Solutions

Burger King, as the world's top quick food chain, is in the impressive situation of influencing the environment sustainability debate. Customers of today are wary of restaurants procurement methods and this often affects their buying choices. Furthermore, sustainable sourcing is not only useful for the environment, but also affects the provision of products to restaurants such as Burger King in the future. By sustainably sourcing products such as beef, soy and palm oil, Burger King should take measures to guarantee that in the future it will be able to obtain these products at decent rates.

Burger King should enforce the following long-term scheme that assures sustainability:

• Importing and meticulous monitoring of products from viable manufacturers.
• Delivering more food choices for fruit, vegetables and non-beef to promote healthier and more viable human behavior.
• The enterprise should associate with franchise owners to decrease greenhouse gas emissions from Burger King Stores.
• Increasing power effectiveness in restaurants and reaching objectives for power effectiveness that meet or exceed other major quick food chains. This should also consist of working with franchise owners to upgrade their stores by using LED lights, power saving kitchen apparatus.
• Implementation of concept of green building where green building relates to both a system and the implementation of procedures that are socially accountable and resource-efficient across the life-cycle of a building: from planning to design, development, implementation, servicing, refurbishment, and destruction.

Also, as per McDonalds, Burger King should also aim to carry out methods to strive to reduce their restaurant footprint. They should concentrate precisely on the following main fields.

• Location – creating brownfield lands, placing the structure to make full use of natural sunlight and shading, and being close to other facilities (lowering congestion).
• Access – offering appropriate access for pedestrians, riders and clients with disabilities.
• Property use and ecology – preserving local vegetation and fauna.
• Pollution – minimizes the effect of sound, light, bad smells, litter, and sewage.
• Design of construction – ensuring that structures are resilient for the future.
• Energy and water effectiveness – ensuring that structures use these assets as effectively as possible and using the opportunity for renewable energy production (e. g. solar power in warmer nations) where it makes total sense.
• Environmental stewardship methods – ensuring that we pursue methodologies to construct in the most environmentally delicate manner
• Increasing further use of recyclable materials (for wrapping, cups and cutlery) and promoting customers to use and recycle products.

Many solutions to biodegradable and recyclable packaging materials are accessible. Which include:

• Banning plastic straws and use of paper or cardboard-paper based straws.
• Ecological paper bottles produced from recycled corrugated cardboard and magazines.
• Use of new types of packaged foods to substitute the unsustainable models on which contemporary life seems to rely. For example: use of edible bowls and straws like ice cream cones which would be one time use items and will help in reducing waste.
• Promote use of chicken or pork over beef.
• Reduce use of palm oil and look for alternatives.

Risks Associated with The Solutions and Recommendations to Mitigate Them

Showcasing the multiple fresh menu items from Burger King, including smoothies, salads, and specialty coffee beverages, the advertisements strike a humorous tone, more stupid and enjoyable than the strange irreverence - creepiness, some might say - of their past ad campaign featuring their former mascot. Unlike the levity of the star-studded campaign, Burger King's new tag line is not a stupid joke, but an upbeat statement: 'Exciting things happen at Burger King. ' It comes after several years when exciting things didn't happen at Burger King. Indeed, the reverse is true. Burger King, formerly McDonald's greatest rival, has left a ton of floor in the last century. In 2010, McDonald's was 101 times ahead of Burger King in median national income per employee, more than doubling its record 10 years ago, according to Advertising Age.

1. We believe if we provide a solution to burger king foods by selling plant base product there are several issues associated with it like as per the several reports on these issues, they said they were left behind by their own competitor just because they did not upgrade themselves. So, for now big problem is to attract people again. And they must buy some new equipment for the store which can cost 31000$ per store which is big economical problem. As they are spending lots of money food price can be little higher than the fellow competitor. Which can be problem for own company to sell product while the target consumer age is between 18 to 34 years and they are working class people if they find batter and economical product from somewhere else they can lose the customer as well. For this problem they can do some promotion to TV and radio and all social media about it and give away some free coupons to people on social media so people can attracted to the nearby store and also they can make free trial day so people can try new product and they can make some survey about how they can improve the product and what people want and based on that they can provide solution.
2. We have one more solution to make a contact with the store owner and plan about to develop the store batter and renovate it with new design to attract people and use of power saving lights and kitchen equipment. This can be good solution but the cost to renovate the store in whole Canada estimated 750$ million and kitchen cost is different so that can be big economical problem for the company which is already losing customer day by day. To mitigate this risk on this solution we can focus on only buying new kitchen equipment and encourage employees use new power saving methods and if possible, just change some equipment which is costing more power than is useful and worth to use so they can cover up the cost of the equipment and there is not big price increment in Manu.
3. The solution of encourage people to eat chicken and pork and reduce the use of palm oil this is also one way to reduce burger king’s greenhouse emit ion rate and solution for their own image in peoples mind about burger king. But there might be risk of change in oil can be resulted as change in taste of food. That can be reason for loosing customer. Encouraging people towards chicken and pork and brake their regular diet plan and tradition of eating is hard to change and its cost money to go for commercials to encourage people to change the dial is hard for the company who is left behind.

We can mitigate the problem if burger king buys the palm oil soy and all raw material from trusted and certified sources which are work under sustainability principals and to encourage people towards chicken and pork, they can give away some discounts to products which contains the chicken and pork.

Conclusion

Finally, Burger King is a worldwide enterprise capable of a worldwide outlook. Burger King's CEO should engage and be a player in influencing these discussions in worldwide discussions about sustainability and deforestation. Multi-national businesses such as Unilever and Cargill participated in the New York Declaration on Forest areas and the COP21 Paris Agreement. Burger King has distinctive possibilities to learn from and engage in worldwide sustainability discussions.

Regretfully for Burger King, this complaint has raised an even higher desire from support organisations to get to the information that RBI's sustainable study does not reveal - such as the roots and effect of its production chain of palm products, another important problem when it goes to the production chain of Burger King.

If there would be any nice side to the unveiled modifications from the company, it's just that: it's chosen to create adjustments. Whether it will attract the enhanced revenues by transferring its poultry to antibiotic-free supplies while waiting longer than a century to prevent its part in deforestation methods remains uncertain. The two problems are one and the same when it goes to defending the atmosphere and Life on earth for many environmental activists and animal rights supporters.

References

1. Ann, K. , 2017. Burger King Must End Role in Deforestation. [Online] Available at: https://forcechange. com/240423/fast-food-giant-must-end-its-role-in-deforestation/
2. Carrington, D. , 2014. New Study Says Beef 10x More Damaging To The Environment Than Chicken, Pork Or Dairy Foods. [Online] Available at: https://www. iflscience. com/environment/new-study-says-beef-10x-more-damaging-environment-chicken-pork-or-dairy-foods/
3. Department for Environment, F. a. R. A. (. , 2018. Consultation Stage Impact Assessment on the proposal to ban the distribution and/or sale and of plastic drinking straws in England.
4. Histories, I. D. o. C. , 2019. Encyclopedia. com. [Online] Available at: https://www. encyclopedia. com/social-sciences-and-law/economics-business-and-labor/businesses-and-occupations/burger-king-corp
5. Horman, 2016. HBS Digital Initiative. [Online] Available at: https://digital. hbs. edu/platform-rctom/submission/burger-kings-sustainability-efforts-barely-trying/
6. John A. Jakle, K. A. S. , 1999. Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age. s. l. :The John Hopkins University Press.
7. Krantz, M. , 2006. Burger King's IPO declared 'a success'. s. l. :USA Today.
8. Lee, J. , 2017. Burger King Promises Path to Sustainability - Eventually. [Online] Available at: https://www. triplepundit. com/story/2017/burger-king-promises-path-sustainability-eventually/16681
9. Lewis, R. , 2017. ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA. [Online] Available at: https://www. britannica. com/topic/Burger-King-Corporation
10. Marion, K. , 2010. Just Means. [Online] Available at: http://justmeans. com/blogs/burger-king-environmental-sustainability
11. McDonalds, 2017-2019. Smart Restaurant Design. [Online] Available at: https://corporate. mcdonalds. com/corpmcd/scale-for-good/our-planet/smart-restaurant-design. html
12. Melnick, J. , 2012. Long Live the King. [Online] Available at: https://www. qsrmagazine. com/long-live-king
13. Mitchell, K. , 2017. Burger King's Damning Environmental Impact Exposed. [Online] Available at: https://www. plantbasednews. org/news/breaking-burger-kings-damning-environmental-impact-exposed
14. Restaurant Services, I. , 2019. Restaurant Services, Inc. . [Online] Available at: https://www. rsiweb. com/Net/public/GeneralInformation/AboutRSI. aspx
15. Smith, A. F. , 2012. Fast Food and Junk Food: An Encyclopedia of What We Love to Eat. s. l. :Greenwood.
16. Wong, G. , 2006. Burger King IPO set to fire up: Will investors have it their way when the No. 2 burger chain lists on the NYSE?. New York: CNNMoney.