Dairy Farmers of America is partnering with Pizza Hut to make its cheese more sustainable. The collaboration is producing positive results among participating farmers, including a 10% decrease in GHG emissions intensity from the milk used in the production of Pizza Hut cheese, Pizza Hut stated.

“At Pizza Hut, we’ve always been focused on bringing the best pizza possible to our customers, starting with key ingredients like our cheese,” said Rachel Antalek, Pizza Hut Global Chief Food Innovation Officer. “In partnership with DFA, we’re further investing in making our cheese more sustainable and are very excited to see positive results in reducing our emissions at the farm level, by putting more good into our pizza.”

When the partnership began in 2022, Pizza Hut set a goal to source 50% of the dairy used to make its pizza cheese in the U.S. from dairy farms participating in a sustainability project, including enrollment in the Farmers Assuring Responsible Management Environmental Stewardship (FARM ES) program by 2025. The brand met this goal two years early in 2023, achieving 60% of its sourced milk from farms participating in the FARM ES program. That equates to over 2.35 billion pounds of milk from approximately 140,000 milking cows.  

“DFA farmer-owners have always been focused on taking care of their animals and the land they farm. Companies like Pizza Hut are helping DFA bring more technologies to more farms, which helps to further reduce emissions,” said Jackie Klippenstein, senior vice president and Chief Government and Industry Relations Officer at DFA. “By working together with partners like Pizza Hut, our farmer-owners can continue to build on the good work they have been doing in new ways.”     

Technology and data play a key role in the program.  To determine the dry matter components of a cow’s diet – or what is left of cow feed after all the water is evaporated – farmers receive a SCiO cup. This cup moves testing out of the lab and directly onto the farm, which can help farmers more easily manage feed ingredients and optimize the cow’s diets. Using the information collected by the SCiO cup allows farmers to better deliver precise nutrition to their cows, which leads to a reduction in methane emissions and waste. 

“With almost 20,000 restaurants, we’re leveraging our iconic pizza brand and global footprint to scale innovative and sustainable practices across our business to keep amplifying and integrating good,” said James Watts, Pizza Hut Global Chief People & ESG Officer. “We’re very proud of the work happening in our U.S market with DFA and have taken these learnings to new locations and other partners as we deepen our investments in sustainably sourced cheese.” 

All of these projects are part of the broader climate strategy led by Pizza Hut and its parent company Yum! Brands, which includes a commitment to decrease GHG emissions 46% by 2030 with a focus on restaurants and supply chain. The work also supports the brand’s partners in achieving their sustainability goals, like DFA’s commitment to achieve a 30% emissions reduction across its supply chain by 2030.