McDonald's not alone nixing antibiotics

Bruce Horovitz | USA TODAY

While McDonald's new antibiotics policy is expected to be a strong catalyst toward change in how chicken is produced and sold, the world has not waited idly for McDonald's to act.

On Wednesday, McDonald's shook the fast-food world when it announced plans to only source chicken raised without antibiotics important to human medicine. Company officials said that's what its customers want, and it hoped to achieve that goal within the next two years.

Some chains — including Panera and Chipotle — have a long history of restricting antibiotics. More recently, major suppliers, including Tyson and Perdue, have cut back on their antibiotics use. And one year ago, Chick-fil-A shocked the fast-food world when it announced that it planned to only sell chicken raised without antibiotics at all of its stores within five years.

The driver: Consumers are demanding the change.

Some consumers have been swayed by more recent comments and research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some 23,000 Americans die due to antibiotic-resistant infections annually, and another 2 million, or more, fall ill, the agency estimated in 2013.

"We have a ridiculous dependence on antibiotics," says Steven Roach, analyst for Keep Antibiotics Working, a consumer and animal welfare advocacy coalition. "The action by McDonald's helps to lock in a new mindset and makes it easier for producers and other companies to move forward on a new path."

Antibiotic-free chicken has become one of the top customer requests, says Meyer Skalak, senior director of supply sourcing at Chick-fil-A. That, more than anything else, led to its announcement last year. Right now, some 20% of Chick-fll-A's chicken is raised with "no-antibiotics-ever," he says, meaning the chickens are not given antibiotics at any stage in their lives.

Although this chicken costs the company more, he says, to date Chick-fil-A has not passed along the higher prices to consumers.

At retail, in the fresh chicken category, no-antibiotics chicken is growing at 30% in dollar value vs. last year, and now comprises more than 10% of the category, according to industry estimates.

The big chicken producers say the change is real.

More than 95% of the chickens Perdue produces are raised without any human antibiotics, and more than half are raised with no antibiotics of any kind ever, including ionophores, says spokeswoman Julie DeYoung.

Last fall, Perdue converted its Perdue Simply Smart frozen product line to "no-antibiotics-ever." About a month ago, Perdue Foodservice launched seven no-antibiotics-ever chicken products for school lunch programs, including nuggets and sandwich patties.

In the past several months increased demand for its no-antibiotics-ever food service brands Harvestland and Coleman, has come from universities, public schools, health care and fine-dining and family dining restaurants, says DeYoung.

Meanwhile, Tyson's chicken operations have reduced the use of antibiotics effective in humans by more than 84% since 2011, says spokesman Gary Mickelson. In addition, Tyson stopped using antibiotics at its 35 hatcheries last fall, he says.

Since 2013, Tyson has sold a line of chicken products, NatureRaised Farms, from birds that have never been given antibiotics.

Consumers should take a bow for leading the change, says Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at New York University. "Let's hear it for consumer power."