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New report scores America's Food Companies on Sustainable Meat Production

In a study published called "Flunking The Planet: Scoring America's Food Companies on Sustainable Meat," organizations say 23 leading U.S. food companies are failing at responsibly producing meat for sale.

AUSTIN, Texas — Environment Texas in partnership with Mighty Earth -- organizations that work to protect the environment -- say 23 leading U.S. food companies are failing at responsibly producing meat for sale.

It's a study that was published Thursday called, "Flunking The Planet: Scoring America's Food Companies on Sustainable Meat."

"A lot of these companies care about what's in the meat and they care about how the animals are raised. But, they don't care about the rest of the process," said Brian Zabcik, a clean water advocate for Environment Texas. "What we found surprised us. We found that almost all of these companies are doing nothing to reduce the environmental damage that meat production is causing."

The report claims that runoff caused by rainfall at these farms, which pile up a lot of fertilizer and manure, gets into lakes, rivers and oceans, including an area in the Gulf of Mexico called the "dead zone," an area with low oxygen that can kill marine life.

It also claims that the "dead zone" will reach its peak size in 2018. However, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association, it's actually 40 percent of its average size.

The report was based off of documents on company websites that show the steps they take to produce meat in an environmentally friendly way instead of through scientific, peer-reviewed studies.

Some of the companies on this list include Austin-based Whole Foods, Walmart and McDonald's.

"Then we compared the companies according to a checklist we came up with – with what we thought would be good policies that they should be doing," said Zabcik.

The report does have statistics, but no direct quotes from any of the companies regarding the steps they take to produce the meat in a healthy way.

To view the report, click here.

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