UK supermarkets need stronger policies to ensure suppliers don’t misuse antibiotics on livestock, campaigners have warned.
The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics (ASOA) investigated public and publicly available information about the antibiotic policies of the UK’s 10 largest supermarkets.
Farmers in many countries use antibiotics to reduce the increased risk of disease in livestock in intensive farm environments.
disease
But overuse in livestock can cause bacteria to mutate into superbugs that are resistant to antibiotics, posing a risk to human health.
In May, new regulations were introduced in the UK to restrict the use of antibiotics in agriculture, meaning they can no longer be used to compensate for poor hygiene, poor husbandry or poor farm management practices. .
However, ASOA found that most supermarkets appear to only cover own-label products and exclude branded foods such as imported meat, fish, dairy products and eggs.
According to the report, supermarkets generally specify that suppliers must use good husbandry and farm management practices to minimize the need for antibiotics, but supermarkets do not require high levels of disease or They say they often allow suppliers to use intensive farming methods that are known to lead to antibiotic use.
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Coilin Nunan, Policy and Science Manager at ASOA, said: “Globally, it is estimated that around two-thirds of all antibiotics are used in livestock.
“However, supermarkets often do not check whether the imported food they sell is routinely produced using antibiotics.
“This is unfair to British farmers, who are held to higher standards. More importantly, it is a threat to the health of consumers.”
The report was released on Friday, a day after world leaders met at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday to discuss the alarming rise in antibiotic resistance.
The World Health Organization (WHO) describes the rise in antimicrobial resistance as “one of the greatest threats to global public health and development.”
broiler
In its report, ASOA sets out a set of criteria, including what policies are in place for antibiotic use, which agricultural products are covered by the policy, whether there are targets to reduce antibiotic use, and whether antibiotics are monitored in the supply chain. We ranked supermarkets based on.
Marks & Spencer topped the ranking system, with Waitrose and Tesco scoring high and tied for second place.
The report said Marks & Spencer and Morrisons are the only supermarkets to completely ban the powerful antibiotic colistin, which the WHO says should be reserved as a last resort for human use.
Meanwhile, Waitrose and Tesco only partially achieved this, the report added.
Most supermarkets continue to sell fast-growing broiler breeds, which require six to nine times more antibiotics per bird than slower-growing breeds.
