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

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 that skirt steak, which was previously used in its steak and cheese tacos and steak burritos, killed “100 cows a week” to satisfy customer demand because of the nature of the cut.

The team have swapped out steak leaving the casual dining group’s menus with just two beef dishes: the slow-cooked beef burrito and the 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?’. I don’t think it will materially change the experience for anyone, but actually from a sustainability point of view, it brings us a long way,” he said.

Selby stressed that this is something that he and his co-founder, Thomasina Miers, have been considering since “day one”, as their main priority is to demonstrate that you can “scale a sustainable restaurant”.

Since realising “50% of our net zero journey could be solved if we took beef off our menu altogether” during their monthly sustainability meetings, they decided to take steps in that direction.

The menu is currently 50% vegetarian and uses 250 different ingredients.

He added that the response to the recent announcement has been “overwhelmingly positive” and revealed that the group is also trialling regeneratively farmed beef brisket at one of its sites this week.

In October 2021, Wahaca introduced the fava bean-based Wahacamole in a bid to reduce its reliance on avocados, which has led to “roughly a third” of people swapping guac for Wahac.

Wahaca also launched its tiered carbon labelling system on its menus last year as part of its efforts to be more environmentally friendly and reduce its carbon output.

“What we didn’t want to do was just dictate to people 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 said.

Selby revealed that Wahaca is “looking at dairy and how we can reduce that”, but confirmed that there are 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,” he added.

The chain, which currently 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.

They are also in the process of implementing new oil filters which will double the amount of time that oil can be used.

Wahaca will also launch 99.9% fully domestically compostable paperweight packaging on Deliveroo from next month.

Last April, the group announced that it is targeting environmentally conscious landlords for expansion.

Selby added that the team are currently “in talks with two landlords” who are offering properties with SKA gold rating, which is the “highest level of sustainability”.