Taco Bell: Director of Global Nutrition and Sustainability, Missy Schaaphok

Show Notes

In the first episode of Open Source Sustainability, Alex sits down with Missy Schaaphok, RDN, Director of Global Nutrition and Sustainability at Taco Bell. Missy shares how the fast food giant is working to educate diners on Taco Bell’s green initiatives and planet-friendly options and gives insight into how her background as a nutritionist fits into her sustainability role at Taco Bell. Plus, find out her answer to the age-old question: what’s your Taco Bell hot sauce of choice?

Learn more about how to recycle your sauce packets through Taco Bell here.

This podcast is powered by GreenPlaces. For help in reaching your company's sustainability goals, visit www.greenplaces.com.

Creators & Guests

Host

Alex Lassiter

CEO of GreenPlaces

What is Open Source Sustainability?

We interview sustainability leaders across industries to learn what they are working on and how they are steering their companies toward a climate-friendly world.

Alex: Welcome to Open Source Sustainability. I'm Alex Lassiter, the CEO of Green Places. On this show, I talk with sustainability leaders to learn how companies are adapting their business models to be in line with sustainability goals. We believe sustainability has to be open source to be successful, and these leaders have offered us a glimpse inside their strategies in the hopes that we can all move forward together. We are fascinated by some of the unique challenges these sustainability leaders face and are excited to dive deeper.
In this episode, we speak with Missy Shaaphok, Global Sustainability Lead at Taco Bell. Most fast-food restaurants have a reputation for not being the most healthy or sustainable dining option, but Taco Bell is trying to change that.
Missy, a registered dietician and the fast-food giant sustainability lead, talks to us about the company's sustainable packaging, green initiatives, and of course, the best Taco Bell hot sauce. So let's dig in.
Okay. Well, thanks again for, for joining. Again, this is our first podcast. The, the idea of this is really to dive into how sustainability professionals are looking at sustainability within their own respective industries. We're gonna talk to people from food service, we'll talk to people in software, we'll talk to people in professional services.
But you know, the world like knows Taco Bell, obviously. but not many people know that Taco Bell is pretty focused on sustainability. In fact, I think it's one of your core values. So, we'd love to maybe start off, and again, thank you for joining the show, but also understand like what is your role within Taco Bell and how does that pertain to sustainability?
Missy: So you know, at Taco Bell, because I wear a lot of hats and, and the role of sustainability is a huge part of what I do, it's also very complicated to explain to, to just everyone. So my elevator pitch that I, on what I tell people and what I do at Taco Bell is I make tacos and burritos and what they come wrapped in better for you and the planet.
So that's, that's my like one liner elevator pitch and seem, people seem to get what that means, but if you really wanna double click into that, essentially for Taco Bell globally, I oversee our Food and Planet programs. And so on the food side it's really things like balance choices, like having good options on the menu that people can feel good about. it's stealth health. Things that happen behind the scenes, like reducing sodium, clean label efforts, and also responsible marketing. We wanna make sure that we're, we're marketing in the appropriate channels, and also planet programs.
Alex: That's a lot. There's a lot under, under one umbrella. Is that a common thing with sustainability professionals, that there's more things under the umbrella?
I mean, I, I was on the call this this morning, with somebody who I was asking 'em, you know, the typical, like, what do you do and, and how does sustainability fit into that? And she talked for, for 10 minutes about, oh, well I do sustainability and I do diversity, equity, inclusion, and I think about pay equity.
And I think about nutri, it was like, it was like 20 things. And, part of my question is like, why do you think that is? Like, is that a common thing that when you talk to other professionals that you know, you don't just wear one hat, you're, you're thinking pretty broadly about things?
Missy: I think it depends on the company and the industry. So for fast-food, for example, because it's not an industry in which historically has pointed focus on sustainability. I think somehow it just kind of naturally evolves and merges with other existing roles. What I am seeing though, cuz, cuz by trade I'm a registered dietician, I am seeing more dieticians taking on the role of sustainability as well, and that are already existing in food organizations.
So I am starting to see that as a trend. but there are, there is a need for traditional sustainability roles. and then sometimes it's just embedded into an existing role because now it's, it's now a true business need, and they need, whether it's finding an external person or finding a person that's already internal and knows the business, and that's just a category, an area of focus that they, they could now cover.
So, I mean, that's kind of in the evolution of my role at Taco Bell. you know, I'm, I started off in product development. I was just developing food for the menu. They didn't hire me to be a dietician, but because if that was my background, ultimately it, it transformed into that. And I started leading nutrition also for Taco Bell, so it had a dual role, product development and nutrition. And that was kind of a unique role for a dietician to have working for a fast-food company.
And then, and then when Yum, you know, yum has always led our sustainability efforts, but then they realized, you know, we actually need the brands to start taking some ownership too, and we need to start making some bigger moves.
So at that point, when Yum gave sustainability as a role and as a key function to each of the brands, that's when I took on sustainability as a core function of, of my responsibilities.
Alex: That makes a lot of sense. It is. It is kind of odd to think about a nutritionist working at a fast-food restaurant, but Taco Bell's been pretty forward thinking in a lot of things.
In fact, you know, I think a lot of people are surprised sometimes to know like how much Taco Bell really does push the limit on some of these is an of oftentimes one of the, the first of major QSR chains to really like explore these different issues. For those of you who are just watching, there's a heat wave currently in Southern California where Missy is, and you know, we're experiencing a lot of this climate change stuff like in real time.
So this is just super timely. Okay, so my question is, you know, again, as a general observation as a consumer, Taco Bell, it just doesn't seem like the brand that you would just think is so forward thinking, but you are, you're, I mean, y'all have always been pushing the limit on stuff. And so one of the questions I had was, how does Taco Bell define sustainability?
You know, you've, you've talked about a lot of things from where we source food. You talked about what's, what our food's wrapped in. You talked about, you know, how it gets to you. What is the band at which, like sustainability, where's the umbrella stop on sustainability at Taco Bell?
Missy: So, I mean, that's a great question because, like I mentioned earlier, yum has always been leading our efforts for sustainability.
So they really have defined that for us. And, and there's a lot of, you know, I think common synonymous words that we all use at all essentially mean the same thing. So we have what we call our recipe for good strategy, which is synonymous with sustainability, which is synonymous with food, people, and planet.
So when you say any of those words or any of those groups, They, what we mean is sustainability and those, that's all the effort that we're doing across all the brands globally. If you want a definition, we, we really look to the United Nations Commission's definition, which is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
So that, that's, that's our North star, that's what all of the brands and Yum are tracking towards because we're, we're better together as a collective group, versus Taco Bell trying to define our own you know, version of that. And, and then we're working off on this stream, you know, we're, we're better together collectively. And so that is really what sustainability means for us.
Alex: I, I really like that, you know, because over the last few years, the acronym that you hear with sustainability is ESG, which I've always found interesting because, you know, historically the, the pillars of sustainability is similar to food people, planet.
I think it's profit, people, and planet. And that's what people, a lot of companies have been doing for a really long time. And when ESG comes around, you're, you're really adding in a lot of things that definitely are related to each other. But one of the common themes is, to me is three things that companies had it been focusing on a lot that really need to focus on a lot and kind of like lumping them together a little bit. But we definitely share, I think a lot of those same sort of views as you mentioned, of like being able to run your business and, and do it in a successful way, but not at the expense of our communities, our health and our future. And I think that's, I think that's really, really great.
So we talked a little bit about like what sustainability is, and I know that part of the reason that you do this, You know, it's one of the largest food service brands in the world, but like what's your why? Like why are you in this? Like why did you, you've been doing this for a long time, like you said you were a dietician, but why did you get into sustainability to start, and maybe talk to me a little bit about when you got started, what did the world look like and how has it changed today?
Missy: Well, that's, that's a very interesting question. And it's funny because, you know, when, when young came to the brand and said, all right, we need you guys to lead sustainability. Now my boss and I, I remember us sitting down and saying, all right, let's do. We could do this. No problem. How hard can it be?
So, boy were we surprised when we really started to get into it and we realized, you know what, sustainability is a very, very broad topic and, we're gonna need, we're gonna need some help on this one. So, I mean, it has come miles from where we started six, seven years ago whenever, we, we really took it over.
But I'm super impressed with the work. I, I think without having the topic sustainability, as an umbrella in which to bucket all of this work, we've been doing the work for years, just incrementally, you know, whether or not it was categorized as sustainability. We've been doing the work, which is great because now that we have sustainability as a topic and a North star under which all this work lives, when I go back in time, I'm like, wow, you know, I started to build out this timeline of events and capturing all of the great work on food and planet that we've been doing, and, and it goes back a couple of decades.
So, you know, all of that upfront work has really helped us to where we are. But now that we have a concerted effort and focus, and it's a strategic business priority, now we're just making moves like we haven't before and we have, you know, support from the top down, which allows us to, to do a lot more. And like you said, you know, we're a little bit bullish when it comes to it, and we like to be a brand of firsts, so we kind of like to be out there in, in the forefront and kind of disrupting things, disrupting conventions and challenging ideas and trying to solve things that no one solved before. I mean, why not? Let's see if we can do it.
Alex: As you know, I'm a little bit of like a food history nerd. and we've talked about that I, one of my favorite shows is the Food That Built America. but you're right, I mean, Taco Bell from the beginning, I mean from the very beginning, was always doing things slightly different than the way that other people were. And has really been responsible for a lot of changes, even beyond the ones that we've seen in the last few years. It's really remarkable.
So, one, this is one of my favorite questions, but I, you know, because I'm sure there's a million things that you'd wanna say, but y'all do so much and probably so many things that the average consumer has no idea, they just take for granted, but it's like, what is like one thing, like one accomplishment that Taco Bell sustainability has done, or, or something that you're working on that you just wish customers knew?
Like what's the, what's the story when you sit down with somebody at a party and they say, wow, sustainability Taco Bell and you'd say, well, you'd be surprised that, like what is, what is that?
Missy: Well, the surprising thing is, is that we've been doing this for decades without having, you know, sustainability as a topic. You know, I think they'd just be surprised to learn that, you know, we're actually changing our packaging to be more recyclable.
I, I've had the same phenomenon on the nutrition side, which is people didn't know that we had, you know, we were reducing sodium or cleaning labels, or we had vegetarian options. I mean, this is all stuff we talk about every single day, but no one seems to really know. And same thing with, I mean, just as simple as, hey, we're, we're changing our packaging to be more recyclable and also, we're adding recycling streams instead of our restaurants.
So we can provide a means by which you have access to recycling, because I think it, it's our responsibility to do the right thing and, and to make changes where we have control, like our packaging. So that's our input, but then really now the. The onus is on the consumer to, to dispose of it properly, but it's our responsibility to provide a means by which they have access to that, and that's in our restaurants.
And so I just, you know, what I want them to know is that, you know, we're working on that. We're working on changing our packaging to be better. We're trying to provide access for recycling, whether that's through our TerraCycle Recycling program, and that's a national pilot where you can mail in sauce packets, any brand by that matter, anywhere you are in the US but also we are working towards adding three stream recycling bins in all of our restaurants, so you have access to that.
Alex: So I was hoping that you were gonna bring up the sauce packets, and I know we're gonna have plenty of time later to talk about sauce preferences, but that is the one story that I truly, I tell people about all the time. And I'd love for you to talk a little bit about like, cuz there's some pretty, there's some specific reasons why the Taco Bell sauce packets are in and of themselves a difficult product, to dispose of.
And y'all have done a lot, in the program, so I don't wanna, I don't wanna spoil it for folks, but tell me about the sauce packet program. Why focus on the sauce packets? Like what, why is that an environmental issue in and of itself? And what is the program that you have there and why is that so significant?
Because those types, that type of packaging is, is, is a big deal internationally and not, it's not just a Taco Bell, it's, it's many companies internationally use those and y'all have done a, a tremendous amount of work. So talk to me a little bit about the sauce packets.
Missy: Yeah, there's a lot to unpack on that one. So first of all, this is not a, an issue that's specific to Taco Bell. I mean, there's ketchup packets, mustard packets, mayonnaise packets, hot sauce packets. Everyone has these packets. So this is not an issue that's unique to us. But the thing is, is what's unique to us is our iconic sauce packets. It have the wisdoms on it, and they, they have little characters and they have personalities.
And depending on if you're mild or hot or Diablo or fire, you know, each one has its own personality and you can, you can read it in the tone. And I think, what I love about these sauce packets is it has that character and, and people have their favorites and the way they use them is very interesting, how many they use per item, how many they store in their glove compartment or in their drawer at home or in their fridge, whatever that is.
In fact, I remember reading in the news, a man and his dog got trapped in their car for five days in a snowstorm, and they survived off of eating sauce packs out of their glove compartment.
Alex: No!? I could survive for a lot longer than a couple days on sa on those Taco Bell sauce packets. I, I, they, it's like a marker of my childhood. I told, I grew up across the street from Taco Bell, it’s the closest restaurant in my house. It was the only one in fact, that I could walk to and the coolest place to go, after school.
Missy: So anyway, there's a lot of personality with the sauce packets. They're very iconic to the brand. People love them and they don't want them to go away.
So, okay, so how do we save the sauce packets and save the, save, you know, how people feel about them, but still do the responsible thing. So the thing about sauce packets, and this is again, all, most of them, is they're a multi-layer film. So you have a mixture of plastic and metal, which makes it not recyclable.
So there is no sauce packet out there today that is recyclable because of the multi-layer film and also the size of it too. And then there's a level of food contact as well. So there's a lot of things working against us on the sauce package.
Alex: And the metal. The metal is what? What allows you to customize your pour, because you can, you can do like a thin pour on it because it holds shape when you, when you pour from it. Like when you squeeze from it. Is that what that is? It's like that's giving it the texture?
Missy: Yes and no. It's more of a protective layer cuz it, it's a high pH or I mean, sorry, it's high acid. because of the, the hot sauce in and of itself.
And so the, the metal actually protects the sauce inside from a quality shelf life. So, so it's more about that, protecting it and actually
Alex: it's a preservation thing.
Missy: Yes, exactly. So, so there's a lot of reasons why the sauce packet is what it is, and the design is what it is. However, so what, what we realize is, you know, but then there's a lot of other things going on with the sauce packet. We make 8.2 billion of them every year, it's a lot of sauce packets.
Alex: 8.2 billion sauce packets a year?
Missy: Mm-hmm. individual packets.
Alex: Wow. It's a lot of sauce packets. Have you measured that? How many, how many rooms or Taco Bells does that fill up? I mean, that's...
Missy: That's great question. I need to take that back to my team to figure out. We have not done that analysis, but I would imagine quite a few rooms, maybe a few football fields, maybe multiple, you know, times around the earth. Oh, so it's, it's a lot of sauce. It's also one of our number one contaminants in our, in our recycling stream. So if someone were to put a sauce packet in a recycling stream, it's considered a contaminant.
And now that whole recycling bag, or bag of recycled materials, will get likely get rejected. And then so that, that's a problem, right? If we're trying to actually recycle and someone puts a sauce packet in a recycling stream, the waste teller could reject that. And now that whole collection of items that could have been recycled is now, is now impacted.
So we, we make a lot of 'em. They're considered a contaminant in recycling streams. So what are some options without having an industry solution yet? We found the partner TerraCycle and they said, Hey, we can actually collect those for you and we can process those and our whole, their whole business model is, is around collecting either hard to recycle items or non-recyclable items, and, and they collect those and, and then they actually break them down and process them into, to a form that could be upcycled back into another product or, you know, recycled or put back up into the economy.
Alex: Do you have a sense of where those packets go? Like what is what, like do you, have you, do you know, have you seen what they upcycle into? I'm curious what a packet, does a packet ever become a packet again, or does it go on and turn into, you know, a t-shirt or something.
Missy: That is a little bit of a secret right now? So for Taco Bell, we are okay. We are, we're actually holding on to all of our recycled sauce packets because we have plans for its next life. and, we can't quite disclose that yet.
Alex: So we're gonna have to have a round two of this interview. We're gonna have to have a, a round two of this interview because this is quite the cliffhanger.
Missy: I know.
Alex: Our first Open Source Sustainability podcast has quite the cliffhanger where the, we know where the packets are, we just don't know what they're gonna be. Maybe we need to have a poll.
Missy: It's pretty exciting. Yeah, we should, we should do a poll.
Alex: There's so many listeners to this podcast already, I would imagine that, that they would be thrilled, to put their voice forward of where those, like, where these packets are going. You know, Taco Packet gate. I'm very, very curious, when will you announce, do you have a date on when you're gonna announce what the grand project is with these things?
Missy: I wish I could tell you that, we're still working through the details. Very corporate response to get that.
Alex: But you'll tell us.
Missy: We'll publicly announce, we are just not ready to do that yet. But, I'm pretty excited. I'm very excited about this.
Alex: This is the best thing I've heard all day, maybe all week. I'm so excited to know where those go. But also really cool that like, what strikes me is it relates to, some of this is, go ahead.
Missy: Oh, I was just gonna say, so we need everyone's help to send in their used sauce packets of any brand, because the more we get, the more we can do with it. And we have grandiose plans for these sauce packets. So send them on in.
Alex: How do you get the, how do you get the sauce packets to you? How do we do this?
Missy: So, basically, You can take any envelope or box that you have at home and put inside. Try and collect as many sauce packets as you can at once and send in a big shipment. on our TerraCycle Taco Bell landing page, you can print a prepaid downloadable label, attach it to your envelope or box, and mail it in, super easy.
Alex: Okay. We, we'll, we'll have to, we'll have to make sure that, that on the website and everything, we will get that information out so that anybody that wants to collect their, their, and it's anything, it's not just, it's not just like my Diablo sauce. I have to, it can be anything. I can go get ketchup packets. Taco
That is, that is so cool. so, so, okay. What I really like about a lot of this stuff is this, we started this conversation with sustainability is really hard on nebulous, and it is, it is super hard. It's also very bespoke. Like Taco Bell sustainability is different than anyone's sustainability challenges.
But what I love from all this is, is y'all found a way to make it fun. you know, if we're gonna do something, make it fun and interesting. because why not? You know, like we're trying to do our best here and I think that's, gosh, I think that's really cool.
Okay. So it's gonna be hard to switch gears out of that because that in and of itself was one of the most interesting things I've, I've, I've heard in a really long time, and Awesome. beyond the packets, what are the other, maybe tell me some other, short-term and maybe long-term goal, of what Taco Bell has in store and sustainability in the next, you know, call it 12 months to three years.
Missy: Okay. I mean, we have a lot of, we have a lot of goals and commitments out there and, and anyone can read our recipe for good report, which is on the M site, and we have all of that listed out. So there's a ton of amazing reading content there, and you can hear about what all the brands are doing, but also Taco Bell.
But there is a couple that I can share with you today, which is we have our, our packaging goals and, and also our animal welfare commitment as well. And then we have the Yum climate goals, which is more of the long term. So, I know we've been talking a little bit about packaging, but I can tell you specifically what we're working on, which is, and it's really threefold.
So the first part of the commitment is that we're gonna transition all of our consumer facing packaging to be either recyclable, compostable, or reusable. And all of these are across the globe by 2025, which means every single Taco Bell across the globe, not just in the US.
Alex: What does a reusable Taco Bell container look like? Can you share like what that means?
Missy: Yeah, so we don't have a reusable option quite yet. but it is something we're looking into. But when I say reusable, I mean something like a reusable system, not necessarily a reusable piece of packaging. Cuz, cuz we still consider that single use on, on the behavior in which consumers use our packaging.
So even if, let's say we had a plastic bowl for example, that could be reusable, multiple, multiple times, like Tupperware for example. you know, we wanna take it a step further and we wanna think through what could a reusable system look like? So it's truly, you know, not creating more single use. But that is, that is a very challenging thing for QSR right now, just based off of how people access the brand.
And it's mostly through drive-through and just the sheer volume and, and quite frankly, the infrastructure is not really set up for a reasonable system quite yet for, for QSR. There's a, there's a lot of companies, TerraCycle has a loop program that is starting to work with some QSRs. we're starting to look into that, but we don't have quite yet a model.
But what we do have, we're in a couple of tests right now, in our restaurants where we're testing what reusable food wear for DIN customers would look like. So, plates, cutlery, cups, trays. We're in a couple of restaurants now doing a test to see, you know, could we roll this out into more restaurants?
Like how is this doing? Is this really saving any energy or water or single use packaging? So we're, we're gonna measure it to understand what impact that has, but that would probably be the one reusable test that we're in now versus a, a reusable system that would, that would be managed for the drive through.
Alex: I kind of love bringing, bringing back a little bit of the, the, fine dining aspects. Mm-hmm. of, of cutlery in a, in a, in a Taco Bell. I think it elevates the experience and honestly, after a year in the pandemic of kind of the necessaries of takeout and all that stuff, I just, I, I don't think I'll ever read anything out of Styrofoam or anything like that. Again, it was just too much.
Missy: I wanna eat my burrito with a, with a metal fork in knife, and I wanna smother that with my secret hot sauce.
Alex: I really, honestly don't know if I can put this on the podcast with my, with my, with my wife. But, my mother-in-law, own many occasions. I have come home, eating Taco Bell on our, like our Christmas China.
With fork and knife as well. I think it was a burrito bowl and I know there was a fork and knife and I know it was a Christmas China, so it has happened and, and it's, she loved it. She said, you know, why not? I love this food. So classy. I'm all for it. That's awesome.
Okay, so I'm gonna skip ahead a couple questions cuz we've, we've had like a super awesome conversation, but I wanna make sure that we're kind of covering everything.
Sustainability, like the sustainability transition, like of getting where we want to get to, cannot happen without food service participation. I've talked to a lot of folks in, as you know, I've been in the food service industry for over a decade, talked to food service companies every day. Sustainability cannot happen without participation of food service.
But in particular, sustainability, like our goals cannot happen without the participation of QSR, of quick service restaurants. What do you think in the next 10, we know how, how Taco Bell is gonna, is gonna drive forward from here, but how do you believe QSRs broadly are thinking about this, and what sort of adaptations do you foresee in the next 10 or 15 years?
What does this industry look like from your perspective? Are there, are there new players? Are existing players changing what they, what they're doing? Do we have drive-throughs? Are drones delivering it? Like, what's, what, what does this look like in the next 10 or 15 years as, as it pertains to sustainability and kind of getting to, to where we need to, especially from the perspective of QSR brands?
Missy: That is a great, great question. Also, it's really hard to think 10 to 15 years from now, but, I mean the great news is, is I think everyone's doing something now. Everyone's starting to recognize like, hey, this, we all have to come to the table, to your point, yeah, the entire industry across the board.
But yes, the entire food industry really does need to come to the table on this. And I hope that, my hope is that 10 to 15 years from now, we are in a much, much better place than we are today, cause we really need everyone to come, come to the table. But oh my gosh, 10 to 15 years from now. Yeah. I mean, I still think that people, I mean, we've had drive-throughs for, for decades now, and so I don't know if that is really gonna go away, just thinking about people's busy lives and, you know, the way in which people live and, and the need for accessibility, affordability, and just that convenience.
I, I think, drive-throughs if, if anything, I'm seeing more of those pop up and I'm seeing fast casual now starting to lean into QSR models of, of implementing drive-throughs because they see that as a need and, and people are wanting to just eat in different places, whether it's at home or elsewhere. You know, they don't really want to traditionally eat and sit down.
So I don't know if that's gonna change per se, but I do think, you know, if, if we go back to that reusable topic, and, and thinking through a reusable system, if QSR really wants to get out of single use packaging, which whether you change the material or not, it's still essentially single use. I think there needs to be a huge shift and an adoption of some type of reusable system that everyone, like, we're gonna need the infrastructure.
It's more of a logistical solve really, than it is necessarily a packaging solve. But it's a huge behavior shift and behavior change, not only for the consumer but for the operators. And so I think that is probably gonna be our biggest and hardest adaptation, that I would like to see, especially if our business model stays the same as like the drive-through model.
I would love to see a world in which we could have some type of reusable system that, that everyone is working towards and working and, and that's gonna take part with the, oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Alex: Oh, I was gonna say, you could just remove a cutlery and, and it all just, just deposit tacos just directly into the hands of customers, you know, just,
Missy: Or just feed 'em, feed 'em directly from the drive thru?
Alex: You just catch it in your mouth.
Missy: Here's a taco.
Alex: No, I think that makes, it makes, but it does, I mean, it, it, it makes a lot of sense, right? Like we're the, and hopefully folks, there's gonna be more electrification of cars and all that type of stuff. But in reality, like, it sounds like one of the bigger issues here is, is gonna be the, the, the materials at which you receive the food.
But one of the other sides of this is the components of the food. And I know you've done a lot of work on this, both as a dietician, but you know, some folks I think would be surprised to know that the majority of emissions of carbon emissions from, you know, a restaurant a lot of times comes from the menu itself, which is not so easy of a change.
So one of the questions I had is what is one thing that Taco Bell Diners, fans, customers, can do to help you achieve your goals? Other than center packets in which we're all gonna do, but what is, like, what, what else can customers do if they're interested in helping Taco Bell? Like what, what can they do as they think about navigating a menu, or, making a request or whatever that might be?
Missy: Yeah. I would say, you know, consumers, the key thing is we would just want people to know that they have options and they have choices, which is why we wanna provide access to recycling. We wanna give them options to recycle their sauce packets that aren't recyclable today. But then also we wanna have options on the menu. That's why we have four different hot sauce flavors, and you can pick your flavor, and also, you know, there's a lot of things on the menu.
And I think when we think about our environmental goals, you know, it's, it's a very holistic approach. And so, maybe one plant-based protein is not gonna, you know, reach or accomplish our climate goals, but if we, if we look at it more from a systemic standpoint and look about the issues across the supply chain and, and all of our restaurant systems together, that's really gonna help achieve those goals.
But what I love about the Taco Bell menu is that we are known, kind of what you're saying earlier, as the, the destination for vegetarians. We have over a million vegetarian options on the menu. We have three vegan proteins on our menu. We have refried beans, black beans, potato bites, and you can literally swap them for anything on the menu.
And I highly, highly recommend and encourage that because to be honest with you, we've done some tests where we've swapped meat for beans and we, we highlighted that as like the primary featured option and people love it and they're like, I didn't even miss the meat. So our beans and our potatoes really are super craveable, really.
I mean, of course they knew what they were eating. We didn't trick them, but the, when we do focus groups and we ask consumers like, Hey, what do you think? Oh, by the way, this didn't have meat in it. And they're like, wow, I didn't even miss it. This is delicious. So, I mean, that's, that's what's great about our menu is one, you know, you can have beef, you can have chicken, you can have steak. But we also have three vegan proteins on our menu today that are permanent and have, you know, are not going away.
Alex: Well, what's cool about that is, so I have vastly introduced plant-based into my diet and, and my meat consumption has just fallen off. And I thought for a long time that that was gonna be, almost impossible for me to do.
One of the things that I noticed was you're kind of preconditioned to feeling like you've got to put like, you know, a piece of plant-based protein on the, on the plate for it to be a real meal. And as you taste it and try it, you kind of break that down. And what I like about this is, you know, Everyone's got a Taco Bell order.
Right? And, and by introducing even some of that, you can help people get exposed to trying things without maybe flipping their entire meal. You know, my, my Taco Bell order, and, and, and I'm not gonna get into mine and we are gonna get yours, but I have, I have five items on my, my Taco Bell combo.
Having a couple of those be plant-based can actually make a pretty big impact, and it doesn't feel like I'm completely, risking my meal per se. And I love the idea that at Taco Bell, you do have so much optionality. it has, you're right. It's been like that since the founding of Taco Bell. And, and that's, that's a really interesting fact that I, I'm curious, have you thought about, or have you already, done any sort of research as far as, you know, if people make small substitutions?
You know, again, my order's got five, you know, tacos and things in it, like could people introduce part of it, or are there easy ways at a Taco Bell to swap for more climate friendly options? Is that something that you help people with?
Missy: Yeah, actually I was just gonna mention that and I'm glad you asked because on our kiosks, which are in every single Taco Bell's dine-in location, we've made a feature called Veggie Mode.
And it's just a quick switch, of a toggle and it'll transform the entire menu to vegetarian. So it's super easy.
Alex: That's great. So it’s the same order, same order, the exact same order that you've been ordering since. I have a theory on Taco Bell orders, and I don't know if there's data to back this up, but my theory is, you know, one of the most personal things about somebody is what their Taco Bell order is.
We've like, I've had the same order since I think I was 10 years old, and I, I know my order. I know my brother's order, like I know my parents order because every time we went, we all had our own things. And it's just something that I got used to saying and now I've said it forever for the last, you know, 25 years.
It's great to know that I can keep my order and then just press one button to be able to make it more climate friendly. Like that's a great innovation in terms of helping people do something without making them feel like they have to go explore an entirely new taste or an entirely new meal in and of itself.
So my question back to you obviously would be number one, like, what is your Taco Bell order? And number two, are you team mild? Are you team hot; are you fire or are you Diablo? So let's start with what's your, what's your Taco Bell order?
Missy: well, since I work for Taco Bell, I eat everything on the menu. I do crave it when I'm not at the office, and so I literally will order Taco Bell delivery to my house for lunch.
So, or if I'm, you know, out and about or traveling, it's definitely my go-to QSR, when I'm on the road. So my, my go-to, I do have a go-to, which I'm pretty consistent on and depending on how hungry I am, I, I get one more thing, but I get the crunch Wrap. But I sub seasoned beef for black beans. and I add extra black, I, I add extra black beans cuz I, I like a little bit more.
And, and then I'm gonna answer both your questions in one, because I smother every single bite with Diablo sauce. Diablo is my absolute favorite. It's literally the only, only hot sauce that I eat of ours and every single bite I smother it.
So I love our crunch wrap. I love it with seasoned beef. I'm not a vegetarian. I eat everything, but I do love our black beans. They're so delicious. And they're, the whole black beans. They're simmered in this broth. They're, they're amazing. So, and that's why I like extra, extra black beans. And, and then if I'm extra hungry, I'll get a cheesy gordita crunch. Same thing black beans in our cheesy gordita crunch, amazing. You have to try it.
Alex: It's great. So delicious. I, I do, I sprinkle the, or spray the, the hot every bite. So when I do it, I don't, I don't open it up. I, I, it's, it's, it's, it's like I take the sauce and then put it on each bite cuz every bite. I'm, I'm a Diablo.
I'm Team Diablo as well. Every, every, every bite's. Gotta have it on there. so, well this is awesome. This is such a great, first episode. Really appreciate, the time that you spent. I know we; we got through about half the questions that we had, but that was probably expected in my head. but this is super fascinating and what we're gonna do, is, is we'll get a bunch of information from you.
There's a bunch of things, especially the ways that customers can help, because I know that there are a ton of talk about customers, myself included, who want to be able to try to help and are interested in exploring some of these things. Particularly, really understanding and taking our best guess on what those packets are gonna become, but also explore more earth friendly options. so thank you for, for taking the time to chat with us and, and really appreciate it.
Thank you to Missy for joining us and thank you for listening. If you like this show, be sure to leave us a review and follow this podcast wherever you like to listen so you don't miss an episode. This podcast is powered by Green Places, and if you're looking to reduce your company's environmental impact and reach your sustainability goals, visit greenplaces.com to learn more. I'm Alex Lassiter and I'll talk with you next time on Open Source Sustainability.