McDonald’s Moving to Limit Antibiotics in Its Chicken

By STEPHANIE STROM

McDonald’s said on Wednesday that it would begin using chickens that are not raised with antibiotics used to treat humans, a move likely to put pressure on competitors of the fast-food chain, which now sells more chicken than beef.

The decision by McDonald’s, which is also one of the largest buyers of chicken in the United States, is likely to have a major impact on how poultry is raised and on the kinds of chicken restaurants serve.

The shift toward offering chicken that is largely antibiotic-free is to occur over two years, the company said. McDonald’s also announced that this year it would give customers the choice of low-fat and chocolate milk from cows not treated with the artificial growth hormone rBST.

McDonald’s announcement coincided with Steve Easterbrook’s first week as its chief executive. But the struggling company declined to provide access to Mr. Easterbrook, who succeeded Don Thompson as chief, or to other executives to speak about the new policy, citing the “quiet period” required by federal regulation before the release of its financial performance report next week.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been increasingly vocal about its concerns about the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry as more bacteria and pathogens have shown resistance to such drugs. It estimated in 2013 that at least two million Americans fall sick each year because of antibiotic-resistant infections and at least 23,000 die from them.

The use of a class of antibiotics important in human medicine by farmers raising animals for food increased 16 percent from 2009 to 2012, according to a report by the Food and Drug Administration — although the agency found that sales of the drugs for that purpose had declined somewhat during that period. The government’s concern has caught the attention of consumers, and food companies and restaurants are increasingly using “antibiotic-free” labels as a marketing tool that sometimes allows them to command a higher price.

“The last time McDonald’s did something like this, five other fast-food companies made similar announcements within six months,” said Steven Roach, food safety program director for Food Animal Concerns Trust, one of the advocacy groups involved in the coalition Keep Antibiotics Working. “I would expect we’re going to see a similar pattern this time around.”

Wendy’s and Burger King said their policies prohibited the use of antibiotics to promote growth. McDonald’s said its suppliers could still use ionophores, additives used to increase feed efficiency and body weight gain in animals, which are less controversial.

The National Chicken Council said in a statement that a “vast majority” of antibiotics used for disease prevention in the industry were never given to humans. “Chicken producers have a vested interest in protecting the effectiveness of antibiotics for the welfare of their animals,” the council, a trade group, said. “As such, we’ve proactively and voluntarily taken steps toward finding alternative ways to control disease while reducing antibiotic use.”

Ariane Daguin, the founder and chief executive of D’Artagnan, which sells high-end meat, poultry, game and truffles, said that the move by McDonald’s was significant but that “the devil is in the details.”

“To stop using only those antibiotics that ‘are important to human medicine’ does not mean much,” Ms. Daguin said. “It is important to understand what antibiotic-free really means and the need to eliminate all antibiotics to prevent antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”

In January, the International Production & Processing Expo, billed as “the world’s largest annual poultry, feed and meat technology exposition,” devoted a panel to antibiotic-free poultry production. An industry consultant who participated said that antibiotic-free chicken was no longer a niche business.

“I think in a few years, one-third of chicken and turkey will be antibiotic-free,” the consultant, Richard Kottmeyer, managing director of Strategic, an agricultural consulting firm, said, according to a report on WATTAgNet.com. “The problem then is the other 66 percent of consumers will be resenting the fact that their chicken isn’t antibiotic-free.”

Last September, Perdue became the first major United States poultry company to say it was no longer using antibiotics in its hatcheries, one of the last parts of its production process where the drugs were still in use. A month later, Tyson Foods made a similar announcement, although unlike Perdue, Tyson still uses antibiotics for disease prevention.

And a year ago, Chick-fil-A, the fast-growing fast-food chicken business, said it was no longer using chicken treated with antibiotics. Panera has used meat raised without antibiotics for more than a decade.

McDonald’s is somewhat late to the game, in part because its size makes it difficult to establish supply chains that can fulfill the demand in its 14,000 United States restaurants. It took the company two years, for example, to establish enough contracts to supply it with cucumbers when it added them to its menu several years ago. The company first announced a policy limiting its chicken suppliers’ use of antibiotics in 2003, but it had done little to update it over the years, Mr. Roach said.

McDonald’s latest move coincides with its “Your Questions, Our Food” marketing campaign, in which it answers questions such as whether the eggs it uses are freshly cracked and how it cooks its beef patties. Mr. Easterbrook, the new chief, used a similar program to help turn around the McDonald’s business in Britain.

He is meeting this week with McDonald’s franchisees and suppliers to present what he has called the Turnaround Agenda. One of the seven “Big Actions” he plans is to “win” with the company’s food by, among other things, improving taste and giving consumers food they can “feel good about” eating, like chicken raised without antibiotics.

While scores of advocates applauded Wednesday’s announcement, they were already preparing for another battle with the company over the use of antibiotics in beef production. Last year, McDonald’s pledged to begin buying “verified sustainable” beef by 2016, but Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a Democrat from upstate New York who has long taken an interest in food and agricultural issues, sent the company a letter in January, saying she was “disappointed” in the criteria for determining what beef would qualify.

Those standards were developed by the Global Roundtable on Sustainable Beef, a business group of which McDonald’s is a member, and were condemned as “fundamentally flawed” and “toothless” by advocacy groups in favor of eliminating antibiotic use in beef. “The failure to include meaningful restrictions on antibiotic use in the agreed-upon standards calls into question McDonald’s commitment to ending the misuse of antibiotics and could contradict its own policy,” Ms. Slaughter wrote.

美國麥當勞 兩年內停用抗生素雞

麥當勞（McDonald’s）準備未來兩年內在美國停用施打某些抗生素的雞肉，可能刺激食品業對於抗藥性細菌引發的食安顧慮採取更廣泛的回應。

麥當勞表示，未來在美國出售的麥克雞塊和其它雞肉產品，將不再使用和人體健康關係重大之抗生素的雞隻。不過，麥當勞仍將允許供應商繼續使用對人體醫藥影響不大的抗生素。

這項措施雖未影響漢堡產品，麥當勞仍是致力改變牲畜使用抗生素問題的最大企業。這項改變適用全美逾1.4萬家麥當勞門店，但對海外市場的約2.2萬家店，麥當勞只採取了較緩和的變革。

麥當勞表示，將與美國最大肉品商Tyson Food等雞肉供應商合作，Tyson公司宣稱他們已採取行動抑制抗生素的使用。

伊斯特布魯克出任麥當勞執行長三天後，宣布這項措施。觀察家預期，他領導下的麥當勞會積極改變消費者的印象。

長期批評食品業濫用抗生素的Pew慈善信託基金高級人士韓森說，「這對公共健康確實是件大好消息。」她說，麥當勞在食品業的分量，會促使肉品加工商必須改變飼養雞隻的方式，也讓其他餐廳業者和食品製造商更容易跟進。

根據美國聯邦疾病管制預防中心（CDC）2013年的報告，每年有超過200萬美國民眾出現有抗生素抗藥性的細菌感染，至少2.3萬人因此喪命。公共衛生人士主張，抗藥性日益蔓延是全球性的健康危機，主因就是肉品業過去十多年來的藥物濫用。

美國聯邦食品藥物管理局（FDA）2013年要求製藥和肉品公司協助終結農場為牲畜施打抗生素以加速成長的作法，但相關的指示，仍允許農場繼續使用抗生素預防疾病和治療動物疾病。

麥當勞並且表示，未來供應顧客的乳品，將取自沒有施打rbST人工生長激素的牛隻。麥當勞不久前才在拉斯維加斯和加盟店、供應商與股東舉行會議，討論所謂的「徹底改變議程」。

麥當勞公司的美國區總裁安德斯說：「人們想知道他們的食物含些什麼，有些人以為我們公司太大，被過去綁得太牢，不會有什麼大改變，但我可以告訴你們，我們不但可以，而且會真的做。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/business/mcdonalds-moving-to-antibiotic-free-chicken.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/business/20150305/c05mcdonalds/zh-hant/

2015-03-05．聯合晚報．A10．健康．編譯陳澄和