Alliance welcomes publication of antibiotics data by M&S and Waitrose

As reported in today’s Guardian newspaper, M&S today became the first British supermarket to publish its antibiotic-use data. In response to the article, Waitrose has published its own data, which it had planned to release in the new year.

The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics - coordinated by Compassion in World Farming, Soil Association and Sustain, welcomed this move. Scientific advisor to the alliance Cóilín Nunansaid: “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.”

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.

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.”

Note to editors

Antibiotic use in mg of active per kg of Population Correction Unit

	2016 Industry average	M&S 2016	M&S 2017 estimate	Waitrose 2016
Beef, veal, venison	N/A	N/A	N/A	Less than 10
Lamb	N/A	N/A	N/A	Less than 10
Pigs	183	41	41	50-75
Dairy	26.2	15	13	15-25
Chicken	17	4	2.5	Less than 5
Duck	3	N/A	N/A	Less than 5
Turkey	86	N/A	N/A	10-15
Salmon	N/A	N/A	N/A	Less than 10
Trout	N/A	N/A	N/A	Less than 5
Egg	0.73	N/A	N/A	Less than 0.5

The Population Correction Unit is a European Union technical unit measuring the size of a livestock population.