Food safety fears have erupted over a methane-reducing feed supplement used by at least three beef suppliers to Australian supermarket giant Coles for its “carbon neutral” range.
Coles announced in November last year that it was expanding the use of feed supplement Bovaer, which is produced and manufactured by Netherlands-based pharmaceutical company DSM-Firmenich, and claimed it reduced cattle emissions by at least 50%.
The supermarket said that three Coles Finest Carbon Neutral Beef suppliers were using the additive due to a partnership with DSM-Fermenich, nothing that Bovaer has been approved for use by the European Food Safety Authority and in over 50 countries.
I’LL BE GIVING COLES BEEF A MISS
If Coles are selling beef from cattle that have been administered an ”unapproved new animal drug” which contains the ingredients; Silicon dioxide, propylene glycol & 3-nitrooxypropanol – and marketed as Bovaer®, a drug which is required by the… pic.twitter.com/9P9CjEWGat
— Craig Kelly (@craigkellyXXX) November 30, 2024
But Australians have expressed concerns about the supplement, with former Liberal MP Craig Kelly saying on Sunday “I’ll be giving Coles beef a miss” as it was “only being administered because of the Net Zero insanity in the belief that if we stop cows from farting we will avoid bad weather”.
“I’d hope my local butcher can put a sign up in his window ‘Bovaer free beef sold here’,” he wrote, called for a bill in parliament to require all beef from cattle given the supplement to be labelled, and shared warnings about the product from the US stating that the supplement may damage male fertility and reproductive organs.
Mr Kelly also pointed out that the manufacturer only claims methane reduction of “up to 45% for beef cattle” as opposed to the “at least 50%” claimed by Coles, and identified investment giants Blackrock and Vanguard as major shareholders of its US distributor.
United Australian Party Senator Ralph Babet said he too would be avoiding beef raising with the use of Bovaer.
“Although this has been deemed safe by government bureaucrats I will not be taking the risk with these products. There have been numerous allegations of health problems caused by these additives,” he wrote on X.
“I think it’s a great idea to more clearly label what chemicals, drugs etc that livestock is injected with/fed. Similar to how it’s done for packaged food products. I’ll look into it,” he said in reply to Mr Kelly’s call for a bill on labelling.
Many others said they did not trust bodies such as the US Food and Drug Administration to approve products like Bovaer due to their determination that Covid vaccines were “safe and effective”.
“Don’t trust anything the FDA has approved,” said one.
Although this has been deemed safe by government bureaucrats I will not be taking the risk with these products. There have been numerous allegations of health problems caused by these additives. https://t.co/FGyEeVFnRD
— Senator Babet (@senatorbabet) November 30, 2024
The debate follows calls by consumers in the UK to boycott major supermarkets Tesco, Morrisons and Aldi for selling dairy products by Danish company Arla, which is trialling the supplement on 30 farms.
Coles started using Bovaer, which suppresses an enzyme that triggers methane production in cows, in trials in 2022, and said it found the supplement to “successful in reducing methane emissions, with no effect on average exit weight, total weight gain, average daily gain, or feed to gain ratio”.
“We were very encouraged by the results of our Bovaer trials and have used the findings to introduce the supplement to some of our beef suppliers to help them lower emissions on farm and help to reduce our Scope 3 emissions,” Coles Livestock Sustainability & Innovation Manager Maria Crawford said last year.
“We’re looking forward to expanding the use of this innovative supplement to more of our Coles Finest certified carbon neutral beef suppliers and continuing the important research to help support the beef industry’s aspiration of carbon neutrality by 2030 as well as Coles’ sustainability ambitions.”
DSM-Firmenich Vice President-Bovaer Mark van Nieuwland said Bovaer has been in development for more than 10 years with 70 peer-reviewed trials.
“The potential to reduce methane emissions is exciting and offers great opportunity to the Australian beef industry. Australian beef can be lower in emissions while retaining the same great quality it is known for,” he said.
“Bovaer is the most extensively studied and scientifically proven solution to the challenge of burped methane to date — with 100+ on-farms trials in 20+ countries and more than 70 peer-reviewed scientific studies. In every case, it has proven safe for animal, farmer and consumer,” DSM-Firmenich says on its website.
“Bovaer is authorized and available for sale in over 55+ countries, including the EU/EEA, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Pakistan, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom (per April 2024).”
Header image credit: Coles
