The franchise now sources 60 percent of its U.S. milk from farms using practices aimed at cutting methane and carbon dioxide emissions 30 percent by 2030.
Pizza Hut reduced the greenhouse gas emissions from the mozzarella cheese used in its menu items by 10 percent in 2023.
The world’s second largest pizza restaurant company, which had more than 20,000 locations at the end of 2023, attributes that achievement to a decision to buy at least half its milk from a 10,000-farm cooperative committed to practices aimed at cutting methane and carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent by 2030.
Pizza Hut announced that partnership with Dairy Farmers of America in August 2022, aiming to meet sourcing goals by 2025. It met that goal more than a year early and then some, according to the 2023 sustainability report published by its parent, Yum! Brands, released Oct. 8.
It now sources 60 percent of the milk used for cheese in the U.S. through the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative. That’s about 2.35 billion pounds of milk from 140,000 milk cows.
Yum! is also parent of the Habit Burger & Grill, KFC and Taco Bell restaurant franchises. In 2023, dairy accounted for 13 percent of Yum’s total Scope 3 emissions from suppliers. Scope 3 represents 99 percent of the company’s carbon footprint.
Following Pizza Hut’s supply chain to cutting emissions
Dairy’s impact on global emissions
Dairy production accounts for approximately 22 percent of U.S. emissions related to food and agriculture. The two biggest concerns are carbon dioxide released through feed production and methane emitted through cow burps and manure.
The farms contributing to Pizza Hut’s reduction in 2023 have their emissions footprint measured on an annual basis through the Farmers Assuring Responsible Management and Environmental Stewardship program. Participating farms are eligible for funds that help with emissions reduction projects.
Promising reduction practices
A big focus of Pizza Hut’s U.S. program has been feed management. Participating farms are using a special cup to manage the proportion of dry feed in cows diets, which results in a methane reduction.
Pizza Hut recently expanded its dairy sustainability efforts to New Zealand, where it recently started a three-year-long program to assist farmers with operational efficiency, and to the United Kingdom, where it is supporting a two-year-long initiative to help participating farms reduce methane emissions through changes to the feed they use.
Pizza Hut is among a growing number of food companies calling attention to dairy emissions. Mars is investing $47 million over the next three years to reduce the footprint of the milk and butter used for its snack business; dairy is among the top five impacts for that division. General Mills, which leverages the same benchmarking program as Pizza Hut, calls out reducing dairy emissions as an important lever for meeting its 2030 reduction targets.
Because food companies don’t generally own their dairy suppliers, the best way to influence reductions is through relationships that help farms make these transitions without taking on too much financial risk, said Mollie Hoss-Kuhne, senior strategist and food and beverage lead with Quantis.
Here are practices that can produce emissions reductions quickly, she said:
- The use of feed additives, such as those based on seaweed.
- Changes to the protein-to-forage ratios in the cows’ diets.
- Decreases in the amount of nitrogen used for feed crop production.
- New approaches to manure management, such as adopting different storage options and optimizing ways it can be used for soil nutrients.
“You see a lot of the largest companies have put pilots or pilot farms or projects into place where these technologies are being investigated and looked at,” Quantis’ Hoss-Kuhne said.
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