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News

Most U.S. Restaurant Chains Fail to Adequately Address Antibiotic Use, Report Says

September 15, 2015

A joint report and scorecard put together by a number of organizations has rated more than 20 top restaurants on their use of antibiotics in meat. With the exception of five companies, all received failing grades.

The Center for Food Safety, Consumers Union (a division of Consumer Reports), Food Animal Concerns Trust, Friends of the Earth, Keep Antibiotics Working, and the Natural Resources Defense Council all worked together to research and write “Chain Reaction: How Top Restaurants Rate on Reducing Use of Antibiotics in Their Meat Supply”.

The five companies that passed the assessment include Chick-Fil-A, Chipotle, Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s and Panera Bread. These are also the only brands assessed that have “adopted publicly available policies that meaningfully limit routine antibiotics use”. These policies range from strict prohibitions on any antibiotics use (Chick-Fil-A), to policies that prohibit use in chicken of antibiotics important in human medicine (McDonald’s). Out of these five companies, all but McDonald’s have antibiotics use policies that apply to all the meat they serve.

The report says that “most top U.S. chain restaurants including Subway, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), have so far failed to effectively respond to this growing public health threat by publicly adopting policies restricting routine antibiotic use by their meat suppliers.” Additionally, a long list of brands either have no disclosed policy on antibiotics use in their meat and poultry, or have policies that “allow for the continued, routine use of antibiotics in the production of all meats they serve.” Those brands are Applebee’s, Arby’s, Burger King, Chili’s, Dairy Queen, Denny’s, Domino’s, Jack in the Box, KFC, Olive Garden, Papa John’s Pizza, Pizza Hut, Sonic, Starbucks, Taco Bell and Wendy’s.

“From bacon cheeseburgers to chicken nuggets, most meat served by America’s chain restaurants comes from animals raised in industrial-scale facilities, where they are routinely fed antibiotics to prevent disease that is easily spread in crowded, unsanitary, stressful conditions,” says Kari Hamerschlag, senior program manager at Friends of the Earth. “It’s time for the U.S. restaurant industry to take leadership and address the growing crisis of antibiotic resistance by working with their meat and poultry suppliers to eliminate the routine use of antibiotics and improve overall conditions in U.S. meat production,”

The report comes at a time when restaurants and the food industry at large is facing increased pressure from consumers and food safety advocates to curb use of antibiotics in meat.
 


Author(s): Staff

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