Chick-fil-A plans to only use antibiotic free chickens

Chick-fil-A said it will put plans in place to ensure that its poultry products will not be raised with antibiotics.  It indicated it will take about 5 years to accomplish this goal.

While 5 years seems like a long time, the no-antibiotic claim is not an easy thing to accomplish.  Whether we like it or not, antibiotics are important in controlling disease in poultry.  A supply chain that requires the elimination of antibiotics must be stout enough to endure handling of a disease outbreak.  Also, farmers within the current supply chain may not want to make the same pledge, or may need to have alternative channels to move poultry if that flock should require antibiotic administration.

The administration of antibiotics must be controlled, no doubt, but complete elimination is not as easy as it sounds.

 

 

NEW YORK TIMESBusiness Day
Chick-fil-A Commits to Stop Sales of Poultry Raised With Antibiotics
By STEPHANIE STROMFEB. 11, 2014


Chick-fil-A said on Tuesday that within five years it would no longer sell products containing meat from chickens raised with antibiotics.

The company said consumer demand was responsible for the change. “We have an ongoing process of constantly monitoring what our consumers prefer in terms of health and nutrition and what’s in our food, and this issue surfaced as the No. 1 issue for our customers,” said Tim Tassopoulos, executive vice president for operations at Chick-fil-A.

A growing number of restaurant chains, including Chipotle and Panera Bread, have made commitments to serve meat only from animals raised without antibiotics, and consumers have responded enthusiastically.

The trend exemplified what Daymon Worldwide, a consulting firm that works with the food industry and others, has identified as “free-from,” a quest among consumers for pure and simple products, free of preservatives, highly processed ingredients and anything artificial.

Subway announced last week that it would eliminate azodicarbonamide, a chemical that commercial bakers use to increase the strength and pliancy of dough, but, as noted by the consumer crusader Vani Hari, is also used for the same purposes in yoga mats and shoe soles.

And on Tuesday, Kraft said it was taking sorbic acid, an artificial preservative that had come under attack by consumers, out of some individually wrapped cheese slices.

Those were among dozens of product changes announced by major food companies in the last year. “All of this is makes for great P.R., but it doesn’t mean the products are necessarily any more nutritious,” said Michele Simon, a public health lawyer who writes the blog eatdrinkpolitics.com

Ms. Simon said that Chick-fil-A’s decision was different because antibiotic resistance is such an important issue. “This doesn’t make fried chicken nuggets good for you, but given the public health crisis caused by the practice of giving animals antibiotics, I think this is an important decision,” she said.

Concern is growing among public health officials about the increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Last fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the first time quantified the toll such resistance is taking, estimating that at least two million Americans fall ill and at least 23,000 die from it each year.

The C.D.C. report said that “much of antibiotic use in animals is unnecessary and inappropriate and makes everyone less safe.” Then in December, the Food and Drug Administration announced a plan to curtail the use of antibiotics in animals.

Meat producers use antibiotics to prevent sickness in animals that are raised in close quarters in industrial farming operations. Chickens are treated, for example, with a small dose of gentamicin while still in ovo in an effort to prevent infection through a tiny hole made when the egg is administered a drug that prevents Marek’s disease and infectious bursal disease, highly infectious viral diseases that can wipe out flocks.

Antibiotics also are incorporated into feed commonly used by large producers to help animals grow faster and use feed more efficiently.

But producers are aware of the consumer demand for antibiotic-free meat. Bell & Evans, a smaller producer, has worked with its feed supplier to incorporate oregano into the kibble it feeds its chickens to act as a replacement for antibiotics, and Tyson last year started a line of chicken marketed under the label NatureRaised Farm, which is raised cage-free on a vegetarian diet without antibiotics.

Chick-fil-A already uses chicken breasts free from fillers, additives and steroids.

Rob Dugas, vice president for supply chain management at Chick-fil-A, said the shift would take time because it required changes by producers from the hatchery to the processing plant. “For instance, any flock treated with antibiotics today is aggregated into the larger production facility,” Mr. Dugas said. “For us, birds will have to be segregated all the way down to the egg production.”

Chick-fil-A executives said they could not say yet whether the changes would result in a price increase for consumers. Typically, antibiotic-free chicken is more expensive than traditionally processed poultry.

“We do know that it has a potential cost ramification, both to us and to our customers,” Mr. Tassopoulos said. “We are going to do everything we can to minimize the impact on the price of our products, and the growing interest in antibiotic-free meat may help with that by increasing

supplies.”

Overstating the Link of Antibiotic Resitant Bacteria in Animals to Humans

There has been a huge concern on the importance of antibiotic resistant strains of Salmonella in domestic animals and their impact on humans.  In a comprehensive study conducted over a 22 year period that evaluated DNA variation, researchers have found that there is little cross-over from animals to humans and therefore domestic animals are unlikely to be a major source of antibiotic resistant Salmonella strains in humans.

“The team discovered that, contrary to much current thinking, the populations of Salmonella in humans and animals were distinguishable. They also found that the estimated number of times that the bacteria had jumped from animals to humans (and vice versa) was remarkably low. In addition, there was greater diversity in antibiotic resistance genes in salmonellae isolated from humans. Taken together, these findings suggest that the contribution of local animal populations to human infections with S. Typhimurium DT104 may previously have been overstated.”

The author of the study goes on to say “"This finding in no way undermines the importance of prudent antimicrobial use in all species. But our study does demonstrate that greater effort needs to be focused on understanding the natural history of the pathogens and on identifying the major sources of resistance in our global ecosystems."

With regard to our inability to completely comprehend why and where bacteria do what they do, Dr. Steve Goodfellow, a seasoned food microbiologist, liked to say that ‘bacteria don’t read the textbooks’.   I think we can also say that bacteria don’t follow stories put out by the news media either.

 

Contribution of Local Animal Populations to Human Salmonella Infections Overstated

Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130912143421.htm

Sep. 12, 2013 — A new study has shown that, contrary to popular belief, local domestic animals are unlikely to be the major source of antibiotic resistant Salmonella in humans. The result comes from a detailed study of DNA from more than 370 Salmonella samples collected over a 22-year period.

By studying the genetic variation in the Salmonella bacteria and their drug resistance genes, researchers found that distinguishable bacterial populations exist in human and animal populations living side by side. Antibiotic resistance is considered to be one of the most important dangers to human health, threatening to make many treatments to common infections ineffective. By comparing the genomes of Salmonella in humans and animals the researchers have provided important new insights into the likely sources and spread of antibiotic resistant infections. First, the Salmonella bacteria largely remained within their original host populations and second, there were more varied combinations of drug resistance in the human-infecting bacteria.

Salmonella infection is a global issue, with approximately 94 million people contracting gastroenteritis or food poisoning each year. The combined annual cost in the United States and European Union is estimated to be more than £4 billion ($6 billion). This public health issue is exacerbated further by antibiotic resistance, which can lead to more complicated and protracted illness in patients and increased treatment costs.

"For the first time we've determined in detail and on a large scale how Salmonella strains taken from humans and animals in the same setting and over the same time period relate to each other," says Dr Alison Mather, first author on the study, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "Our genomic data reveal how the Salmonella bacteria spread during the course of a long-term epidemic. We found that people have a more diverse source of infection and antibiotic resistance than just the local animals, pointing towards alternative sources."

The team sequenced DNA from 373 samples from humans and animals infected with Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 over a 22-year period, mainly from Scotland, but also from other countries. This is the largest study of its type; whole genome DNA sequencing delivers the highest level of resolution possible to examine how closely related the bacteria are, enabling the team to unravel the details of this epidemic.

The team discovered that, contrary to much current thinking, the populations of Salmonella in humans and animals were distinguishable. They also found that the estimated number of times that the bacteria had jumped from animals to humans (and vice versa) was remarkably low. In addition, there was greater diversity in antibiotic resistance genes in salmonellae isolated from humans. Taken together, these findings suggest that the contribution of local animal populations to human infections with S. Typhimurium DT104 may previously have been overstated.