Europe's biggest dairy company is facing a backlash after giving cows a synthetic additive to their feed in an attempt to cut their methane emissions.

Arla, which makes brands including Lurpak butter and Cravendale milk, said it was working with Morrisons, Tesco and Aldi to trial giving cows the additive Bovaer.

Thirty of Arla's 9,000 farmers will test how the additives can be introduced into normal feeding routines, with the aim of then rolling Bovaer out more broadly.

Arla said Bovaer had been found to reduce methane emissions from cows by around 27pc.

Morrisons, Tesco and Aldi said it was a "great way of testing out where we can drive change at scale to bring down emissions".

However, the announcement sparked a backlash on social media, with some shoppers raising concerns about the use of additives in their groceries.

Some went as far as to say they would no longer shop at supermarkets involved in the trial, while others urged the grocers to label any products which may have come from the farms using the additive.

There is no suggestion that the additive is not safe for consumers, with the UK's Food Standard Agency having approved it for use.

The regulator also said that Bovaer poses "an acceptable" risk to the environment.

Customers have no 'strong connection' to net zero

The backlash will be seen as an indication of the challenges facing supermarkets as they race to meet net zero, with Tesco, Morrisons and Aldi all vowing to be carbon neutral by 2035.

Clive Black, a retail analyst at Shore Capital, said supermarkets still faced a challenge in convincing customers of the merits of net zero: "Not many shoppers really are making choices about the groceries they buy on the basis of sustainability. There is a stronger connection to aspects like animal welfare, but not net zero."

However, he said it was good for supermarkets to be embracing these eco-friendly initiatives, particularly given anti-meat and anti-dairy campaigners were using green claims to attack the livestock industry.

It comes as billions of pounds are being pumped into efforts to reduce methane emissions from cows.

In 2022, Frans Timmermans, the vice president of the European Commission, said tackling methane emissions would be "the cheapest and fastest way to slow down global warming".

Over 100 countries have pledged to reduce their methane emissions by 30pc by the end of the decade

Jeff Bezos, Amazon's billionaire founder, recently donated $9.4m (£7.8m) to a project at the Pirbright Institute in Surrey, which is working on a vaccine that will reduce the amount of methane-producing microbes in the cows' stomachs.

Meanwhile, Norwegian company N2 Applied has designed a plasma gun to fire artificial lightning at cow dung to reduce the methane.
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