KFC chicken chain to drop buying birds pumped full of antibiotics used by human beings

KFC’s decision will make more than half of the US poultry supply antibiotic free

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A KFC restaurant in Mountain View, California. KFC said Friday, April 7, 2017, that it will stop serving chickens raised with certain antibiotics. The fried chicken chain said the change will be completed by the end of next year at its more than 4,000 restaurants in the US. Photo: AP

Published: 1:45am, 8 Apr 2017Updated: 1:44am, 8 Apr 2017

The parent company of KFC said it will stop buying chicken that is raised using antibiotics that are important to human medicine.

The announcement by the giant chicken chain came after years of pressure from food safety and consumer advocacy groups, and two years after other food companies such as McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell made similar pledges to phase out the use of products from animals treated with the antibiotics — a practise linked to the rise of “super bug” pathogens that are resistant to multiple drugs.

The policy change is expected to have a widespread effect on the poultry industry, because KFC — owned by Yum Brands — buys its chicken from a great many flocks as a food-safety precaution, according to Lena Brook, food policy advocate at the Natural Resources Defence Council.

With KFC’s shift, more than half of the nation’s poultry supply chain will be antibiotic-free in the near future, activist said.

A Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) bucket of mixed fried and grilled chicken. The chain is phasing out chickens using antibiotics. Photo: Reuters

Matthew Wellington, antibiotics programme director for the US Public Interest Research Group, said the policy change “should have lasting effects on the way these life-saving medicines are used in the chicken industry.”