McDonald’s USA, Lopez Foods, a multi-protein producer and long-term supplier to McDonald’s, and Syngenta North America, a leader in agricultural technology, announced that they are collaborating to increase feed efficiency, a move that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions released per pound of meat produced, as part of efforts to improve the overall sustainability of beef production.
The partnership leverages Syngenta’s Enogen® corn, an exclusive in-seed innovation, shown to increase feed efficiency in cattle and thereby help reduce emissions intensity compared to other corn.
“At Syngenta, we’re convinced improving the sustainability of the global food system can be accelerated through innovation and collaboration,” says Justin Wolfe, President of Syngenta Seeds. “We’re proud of the great attributes of our Enogen® corn, and how our work can help enable McDonald’s and their beef supply chain to deliver impact.”
“McDonald’s is starting with a priority ingredient for our company – beef,” says Kendra Levine, Director of U.S. Sustainability for McDonald’s. “We believe the innovative collaboration with Syngenta is an opportunity to help us make progress toward our science-based climate targets.”
The science behind Enogen® corn is an alpha amylase enzyme that quickly converts starch to usable sugars, thus delivering more engergy to cattle while being easily digestible. University research has shown that feeding Enogen® as silage or grain can improve feed efficiency by about 5%, according to Syngenta.
Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) shows potential for environmental savings resulting from this increased efficiency, including lower emissions of greenhouse gases and lower use of land, energy, and water per unit of production. Specific findings show that, per 1,000 head of beef cattle, this collaboration could potentially achieve annual savings of:
- 196 tons (178 metric tons) CO2e in GHG reduction
- 69 acre reduction (28 hectare) in land use for growing feed
- 6 million fewer gallons (22 million liters) of water used
- 231 thousand kilowatt-hours energy savings
McDonald’s plans to scale this program to help deliver over 164,000 metric tons CO2e per year.
