Honest Burgers to absorb cost of switching to 'regenerative' beef

Honest Burgers is to overhaul its supply chain to ensure every patty is made from regeneratively farmed British beef - and its co-founder has promised prices will not go up as a result.

The restaurant chain, which was launched by Tom Barton and Philip Eeles in Brighton in 2009 and now runs 41 restaurants around the UK, will launch burgers produced via its new "Honest Farming" initiative in six restaurants from today [23 May].

Honest Burgers already makes its own patties in-house in its south London butchery. The chain has invested around £600,000 into the new initiative, which will see it buy entire cows directly from farmers proven to be using regenerative farming practices.

These include raising beef in a way that helps improve local soil and ecosystem health, Honest Burgers said. This means allowing cows to graze without extensive ploughing, which helps soil store carbon, and farmers reducing or eliminating their use of polluting machinery and artificial fertilisers.

The group said this will allow it to monitor processes at partner farms and prove it has reduced its carbon footprint.

The aim is that all Honest Burger restaurants will serve patties via the scheme by 2024. Barton hopes the initiative will set a new benchmark for UK burger and steak chains and help ensure the group "remains relevant as a burger brand that serves a lot of meat" in the future.

"It's taken a huge shift in the way we approach our business," he told The Caterer. "But I think it's the only way [for us] to make a meaningful and authentic approach to sustainability. Like most big restaurant businesses that are focused around meat, we had a serious mountain to climb, but it was a challenge that I didn't want to shy away from.

"We're called 'honest' - we've got this big powerful word above our door - and I think we have to behave in a way that tries to live up to that word."

Honest Burgers has planned for 12 of its restaurants to serve Honest Farming beef by the end of 2022, expanding to 35 by late 2023. The rollout is slow to allow the chain to bear the cost of the process, rather than pass it on to customers.

"There isn't an increase in price coming based on Honest Farming - we're absorbing the cost," Barton said.

Any meat unsuitable for burger production, such as cuts reserved for premium steaks, will be sold on to industry partners. These will include high-end butcher Turner and George, the Ethical Butcher, London's Temper restaurants.

The move is the culmination of three years of work alongside British farming collective, Grassroots Farming, who promote sustainability in the sector. Through the project, farmers will know exactly where their beef ends up, and be incentivised to work in a sustainable way - in part due to having a guaranteed income stream from the chain.

Barton said: "We think businesses being proud of yourself for being carbon neutral is just a buzzword that sounds great...But most people in sustainability say you're just kicking the can down the road. In actual fact as a business, you should be focusing all your efforts and energies on how you can reduce the amount of carbon you create, not just offsetting... We're just fed up of hearing people make grandiose claims without anything to back them up. We're trying to do this in an honest way."

Burgers made from regenerative beef are available from today at the chain's sites in Brixton, Peckham, Clapham, Oxford Circus, Soho and Tooting.