Source: Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE, 4/28/15

Tyson Foods’ announcement today that it is working to eliminate human-use antibiotics from its chicken flock by September 2017 was another major advance among many others in a recent groundswell of corporate and government action to address concerns about antibiotic resistance.

The momentum included Pilgrim’s Pride’s announcement last week that it plans to eliminate all antibiotics from a fourth of its total chicken production by 2019. And last month, McDonald’s Corp. said it is phasing antibiotics out of its supply chain, Costco said it was doing the same for the meat it buys, and the White House released an antibiotics resistance plan. 

Resistance among some major livestock and poultry producers to change their animal husbandry over time has stemmed from concerns over the associated costs and skepticism over the link between their use of antibiotics in food animals and antibiotic resistance in humans, but Tyson recognizes the concern.

“The science (indicating that link) is unclear,” Tyson President and CEO Donnie Smith told Meatingplace in response to a question during a telephone press conference today. “What we feel like to this point is that this is a growing global health concern, and we feel like this is the most responsible approach to that concern.”

Reaction
Reaction to Tyson’s announcement was mixed, from impressed to not-so-impressed.

“This is some of the most exciting news that I’ve heard on this issue in years,” Dr. Lance Price, director of the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University, said in a statement. “Tyson is the largest meat and poultry producer in the U.S., so when they commit to dramatically reducing—and move towards eliminating—human antibiotics in their chicken production system over the next two years, that’s a big deal!” 
Earlier entrants to the antibiotic-free movement were congratulatory at best.

“While we’re pleased to see that others are finally recognizing consumer concerns, Tyson and others in the industry continue to play catch-up with Perdue on this topic,” Perdue spokewoman Julie DeYoung said in an emailed statement, noting Perdue in 2007 removed all human antibiotics from its feed and removed antibiotics use from all hatcheries in March 2014. More than 50 percent of Perdue’s chickens are currently raised with no antibiotics ever, she noted.

'Not a marketing campaign'
Smith repeatedly told reporters that this latest move by Tyson —which has already stopped using all antibiotics in its 35 broiler hatcheries and has reduced human antibiotics used to treat broiler chickens by more than 80 percent since 2011 — is “not a marketing campaign.”

The timing of Tyson’s announcement wasn’t synchronized with the plans of customers such as McDonald’s. But the progress the company has made in recent years, particularly in partnering with farmers to improve broiler housing technology and use alternatives such as probiotics, has given the company confidence it can achieve the September 2017 goal.

The company’s efforts in recent years also have allayed concerns about a material financial impact. Smith said that in the process of reducing antibiotics in hatcheries the company has found improvement in broiler performance.

“We do not expect any cost change,” he said, noting that only 2 percent of Tyson's chicken flock supplies its higher-cost “no antibiotics ever” product.

No compromise
Despite the intent of Tyson’s goals, the company said it will not compromise the health of its broiler flock — only a mid single digit percentage of which ever is administered human-use antibiotics — to reach those goals.

“If those animals need treatment, we’ll use the best treatment available to us,” Dr. Christine Daugherty, Tyson’s vice president of Sustainable Food Production, said on the call. “If it does require human-use antibiotics, we will report that in our 2015 sustainability report.”

Smith noted that Tyson follows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s “very strict” guidelines requiring producers to withdraw antibiotics well before chickens are taken to a processing plant. At the plant level, USDA does random sampling on chicken meat to check that residue levels are at a minimum.

Tyson, meanwhile, is trying to get a handle on antibiotics use in the cattle, hogs and turkeys it processes. Smith noted that unlike the chickens it processes, the company does not own those other species and therefore is less familiar with how much antibiotics are administered to them. The company has formed working groups to address those questions.

“We don’t have that data,” he said. “As we get further along with working groups, we’ll be better informed.”

Time will tell how Tyson and other major food producers address another growing consumer concern: genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Chipotle announced this week it will no longer cook with ingredients that contain GMOs (though for now it will still be sourcing meat products from animal fed GMO grains). And today, the NPD Group reported that more than a half of U.S. consumers express some level of concern about GMOs (but when asked to describe GMOs, many consumers are unclear).

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