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Wahaca drops steak from its menus to save ‘100 cows a week’


The Mexican restaurant chain says it will continues to serve beef, but will no longer offer steak and cheese tacos and steak burritos


By Jungmin Seo


Mexican restaurant chain Wahaca has dropped steak from its menu, despite it being its third biggest-selling dish. Co-founder Mark Selby told


The Caterer skirt steak, used in its steak and cheese tacos and steak burritos, cost the lives of “100 cows a week” to satisfy cus- tomer demand, because of the nature of the cut. The removal of the dishes


from across the casual dining group’s 13 UK sites leave it with just two beef dishes: slow- cooked beef burrito and new beef gringa tacos. “While I’m not worried about


it at all, it is a bold step and it’s one where we did debate ‘do we really want to do this with our third-biggest dish?” said Selby. “I don’t think it will materi-


ally change the experience for anyone, but actually from a sustainability point of view, it brings us a long way.” Selby stressed that dropping


steak was something he and Wahaca’s co-founder Thom- asina Miers had been consid- ering since “day one”, as their goal was to demonstrate that it was possible to scale a sustain- able restaurant. He said the team realised


during a monthly sustainabil- ity meeting that Wahaca could halve its journey to becoming net zero if it stopped serving beef. Wahaca’s menu is cur- rently 50% vegetarian and uses 250 different ingredients. Selby said the response to the


move had been “overwhelm- ingly positive” and revealed the group is also trialling regeneratively farmed beef brisket at one of its sites. In October 2021, Wahaca introduced the fava bean- based ‘Wahacamole’ in a bid to reduce its reliance on avoca- dos, which Selby said has led to


6 | The Caterer | 28 April 2023 Mark Selby and Thomasina Miers said they had been considering cutting steak since opening Wahaca


“While I’m not worried about it at all, it is


a bold step” Mark Selby


roughly a third of people choos- ing it over guacamole. The group also launched a


tiered carbon labelling system on its menus last year as part of its efforts to be more environ- mentally friendly and reduce its carbon output. Each menu item has a low, medium or a high rating, depending on the CO2 emissions of each dish


calculated by carbon manage- ment software company Klimato. Selby said: “What we didn’t


want to do was just dictate to peo- ple and be ‘holier than thou’. We believe very much as a brand in slowly changing people’s habits for the better but giving people information to allow them to make their own choices.” He added that Wahaca was looking at reducing its use of dairy but said there were currently no plans to remove cheese altogether. “We’ve got to work out what


are the alternatives and the moment good and interesting alternatives come along, we will certainly trial them,” Selby said. The chain, which has 13 sites,


has also cut electricity usage by 40% in its new locations and has partnered with its knife


supplier to recycle old chopping boards. It is also in the process of implementing new oil filters which will double the amount of time oil can be used. Wahaca will also launch


99.9% fully domestically com- postable paperweight packaging on Deliveroo from next month. Last April, the group announced that it was looking to work with environmentally- conscious landlords as part of its expansion. Selby said the team are cur-


rently in talks with two landlords offering properties with an SKA gold rating, which is top level that can be achieved through the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors’ sustainability assess- ment scheme.


jungmin.seo@thecaterer.com www.thecaterer.com


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