Fast-food chain Burger King has walked back on its pledge to swap dairy for Oatly’s barista milk in hot drinks in Austria, announcing that cow’s milk will remain on the menu.
On October 20, Burger King Austria made an unprecedented (and laudable) decision to make oat milk the default option in all hot drinks, removing the choice of dairy altogether.
Seven days later, the food giant did an about-face.
Cow’s milk is now back on the menu, despite what Burger King called an “overwhelmingly positive” response to its oat milk transition. Indications are that consumer feedback forced the company’s hand to return cow’s milk to the menu.
It will continue to partner with the Swedish plant-based pioneer Oatly, whose new Baristamatic oat milk will still be available in all 63 locations across the country, but in tandem with dairy.
Why cow’s milk is back at Burger King Austria
Following the initial announcement to replace cow’s milk with Oatly, a page on Burger King’s website explained that oat milk still delivers on the taste frontier, though with much fewer emissions than dairy.
It nodded to Oatly’s status as the world’s first climate solutions company in the food sector, which confirms that at least 90% of the oat milk maker’s revenues come from products with a 50% lower emission footprint than standard market options. It also confirmed that making oat milk the default option won’t cost customers extra.
That webpage, however, has since been deleted. As has the original press release, which stated that the company was hoping to set a “strong example for conscious consumption” in the foodservice sector.
In a new press release, Burger King said: “The response in the first few days of the launch has been overwhelmingly positive; however, many guests still prefer to enjoy their coffee with cow’s milk. At Burger King, guest preferences are continuously incorporated into the further development and design of the menu.”
“The strengthening of the coffee segment with the oat drink from market leader Oatly is another significant step in completing our existing plant-based product alternatives in the burger category and expanding our leadership in this market segment in Austria,” explained Hartmut Graf, CEO of The Eatery Group, Burger King’s master franchisee in the country.
“However, at Burger King, the guest is king, and we always tailor our offering to our guests’ preferences – both in food and beverages,” he said.
Burger King undermines its plant-based legacy
Burger King’s reversal is a blemish to an otherwise commendable legacy of championing plant-based eating. The chain has turned over a dozen of its restaurants meat-free worldwide, starting with a site in Cologne, and including a highly publicised month-long experiment in London’s Leicester Square.
The decision goes the way of previous trials of making vegan options the default choice, which never became permanent. At a Vienna store in 2022, the chain gave customers plant-based burgers instead of conventional meat unless they specifically asked for the latter. And a year later, it made Oatly the default milk option at 10 locations in Germany for two months.
Before backtracking, Burger King had said the move was designed to enable climate-friendly eating without compromising on the sensory experience.
“Following the popular plant-based burger variations, the conversion of the entire coffee offering is another milestone that demonstrates that sustainable enjoyment and great taste are not mutually exclusive,” the company had stated.
The reintroduction of cow’s milk undermines that sustainability goal. The dairy industry accounts for 4% of global emissions, and 8% of methane output, a gas 28 times more potent than CO2 over a 100-year period. It also uses vast swathes of farmland and a significantly higher amount of water than plant-based alternatives.
Oatly’s Baristamatic product, designed specifically to reduce sedimentation and retain foamability in automatic coffee machines, emits just 0.53kg of CO2e, around half of the climate footprint of the average cow’s milk product in Austria.
The oat milk maker had hoped that Burger King’s embrace would show that non-dairy milks “are no longer just an option, but can become the new standard, without compromising on taste or functionality”. Evidently, though, there’s still some way to go.
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