Dive Brief:
- While several companies are making announcements that they will decrease or eliminate their use of antibiotics for the livestock they source, Sanderson Farms has announced it will not be doing the same.
- Sanderson Farms CEO Joe Sanderson said that consumer health concerns are blown out of proportion and that companies' recent announcements of cutting back on antibiotics is more marketing than anything.
- "There’s no reliable science that says by using these [government] approved antibiotics, that there is going to be any resistance," Sanderson said, according to the Wall Street Journal. "We have a duty to take care of the animals."
Dive Insight:
Tyson Foods Inc. and Pilgrim's Pride have both come out with announcements that they would discontinue antibiotics (either all or medically important) in all or some of their chickens.
According to the FDA, sales of antibiotics for farm animals are on the rise. The FDA now wants to learn more about antibiotics use on the farm by collecting more data from pharmaceutical companies.