Southeast Portland bar, White Owl Social Club, has permanently replaced all beef and lamb burgers, its signatures dishes, with a burger made from Impossible Foods‘ vegan meat. The bar has made the move due to concerns about the environmental impact of meat.
The social club shared its announcement via an emoji-studded Instagram post:“✨White Owl ✨is proud to announce we have eliminated BEEF & LAMB from our regular menu 💥PERMANENTLY💥. Both BEEF & LAMB leave the largest environmental footprint of all meats, and we’ve been slowly trying to reduce the impact our business has on this planet. 🧚🏼♀️We are NOT a completely MEAT-FREE business, but we are making big changes for the better.”
According to PDX Monthly, the metal-music heavy pub sold about $80,000 of beef and lamb burgers last year. Now, this year’s figure will be significantly reduced and, in the years to follow, that figure will turn to a humble $0. The bar will also be turning to compostable paper products and straws from now on.
“Most people know that meat burgers are unsustainable and extremely damaging to the environment, not to mention [mass-produced] beef is a criminally cruel industry,” White Owl’s co-owner Matt Relkin told PDX Monthly. He added, “at first we thought [lamb] was a better choice environmentally, but upon further research, we learned that lamb was even worse than beef in regards to greenhouse emissions.”
Impossible Foods claim their “bleeding” vegan burgers use 75 percent less water and 95 percent less land than conventional beef. With this in mind, the pub is definitely onto a more sustainable menu.
White Owl also serve another, award-winning, vegan burger. This burger is made from a beetroot-wakame-hazelnut patty, pea shoots, and carrot ribbons. Relkin hopes customers will be open to the new, mostly plant-based, menu additions.“We hope customers trust us with the choices we are making. It’s truly coming from a place of compassion and concern for this world we all live in. We don’t want to be part of the problem,” he stated.
Image Credit: Yvette Aispuro for PDX Monthly, Nuñez Photography