Source: Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE, 4/15/16


A $1 trillion coalition of 54 institutional investors is leaning on major restaurant chains to stop sourcing meat and poultry from animals administered antibiotics for non-therapeutic uses.

Aviva Investors, Natixis Asset Management, ACTIAM, Mirova, Coller Capital and Strathclyde Pension Fund, among others, wrote letters to ten of the biggest U.S. and U.K. restaurant chains urging them to help end non-therapeutic use of antibiotics important to human health in their global meat and poultry supply chains.

The ten companies are Brinker International Restaurants; Darden Restaurants; Domino’s Pizza Group; J. D. Wetherspoon; McDonald’s Corp.; Mitchells & Butlers; Restaurant Brands International; The Restaurant Group; The Wendy’s Company; and Yum! Brands.

The coalition of investors was organized by the Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return Initiative and investment charity ShareAction, with the support of U.S. investor group ICCR and U.S. non-profit As You Sow.

Citing warnings from the World Health Organization that irresponsible antibiotics practices is causing antibiotic resistance, the investors are asking the restaurant companies to set appropriate timelines to prohibit the use of all medically important antibiotics in their global meat and poultry supply chains. FAIRR and ShareAction released a report finding that half of the 10 chains have no publicly available policies in place to manage or mitigate antibiotic overuse in their supply chains, and none of the companies currently has a fully comprehensive policy addressing antibiotic overuse.

The investors said they are concerned that a failure to confront irresponsible antibiotic use in the face of increasingly strict regulation poses significant risks to their investments.

Jeremy Coller, Founder of the FAIRR Initiative and CIO of Coller Capital, said:

“These large food companies are key ingredients in the portfolios of most of our pensions and savings – thus it is a case of proper risk management to ask them to work out how they will meet this challenge. The world is changing, regulation on antibiotic use is set to tighten and consumer preferences are shifting away from factory-farmed food. As stewards of these food companies and responsible investors, we want to protect both human health and shareholder value.”

For more stories, go to www.meatingplace.com.