Two leading retailers will now publish their data on antibiotic use in the supply chain, in a move welcomed by the industry.
Marks and Spencer became the first British supermarket to publish its antibiotic data. In response, Waitrose has published its own data, which it had planned to release in the new year.
The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics has welcomed the decisions by M&S and Waitrose to publish data on antibiotic use in their supply chain.
Cóilín Nunan of the Alliance said: “We very much welcome M&S’s and Waitrose’s decisions to publish data on their suppliers’ antibiotic use.
“We want to see all supermarkets increase transparency for consumers by publishing similar data. Several other supermarkets have already collected data, but are so far refusing to publish it.”
Below average
Both data sets show antibiotic-use levels which are well below industry averages.
M&S data covers only pig, chicken and dairy farming, but shows that their pig and chicken farmers are using less than one quarter of UK averages.
Waitrose data is much more comprehensive, additionally covering beef cattle, lamb, turkeys, ducks, egg production and farmed fish. Antibiotic use in Waitrose’s pig and chicken suppliers is about one third or less of the industry averages, and use in turkeys is about one sixth of the average.
Mr Nunan said: “The publication of this data should help drive average use across the farming industry down, as it illustrates the extent to which many other producers are still overusing antibiotics, despite recent cuts.
“We are also calling for all supermarkets to publish antibiotic-use data by farming system, so that consumers can compare free-range and organic farming with indoor farming and intensive systems.”
'Biggest threat'
The overuse of antibiotics in farming has been highlighted as one of the "biggest threats to human health", a UN report warns.
The World Health Organisation has already urged farmers to stop using antibiotics to promote growth and prevent disease in healthy animals because of the serious risks to human health.
As such, the UK government has recently reported a 27% drop in use of antibiotics in animals reared on British farms over the last two years in a bid to cut domestic use.
Sector-specific targets have now been developed looking at how each sector can reduce their usage of antibiotics.
