Supermarkets still lack robust antibiotic policies, despite alarming rise in antibiotic resistance

New report Resistance and Responsibility: Antibiotic use in supermarket supply chains finds that while supermarket antibiotics policies have contributed to significant reductions in antibiotic use on UK farms over the past decade, they are generally not being applied to branded foods, which can include imported meat, fish, dairy and eggs. 

The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics is a joint initiative of Compassion in World Farming, Soil Association and Sustain. Read Executive Summary. Read the full Report. 

The report is published just as world leaders meet at the UN general assembly in New York to discuss the alarming rise in antibiotic resistance. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes the rise of antimicrobial resistance as “one of the top global public health and development threats” [2]. It is estimated that annually antibiotic  resistance kills 1.27 million people worldwide, including 7,600 people in the UK [3][4].

The overuse of antibiotics leads to antibiotic resistance, so new legislation was introduced in the UK on 17 May 2024 to restrict the use of antibiotics in farming [5]. The legislation prohibits using antibiotics to “compensate for poor hygiene, inadequate animal husbandry, or poor farm management practices”. Unfortunately, none of the supermarkets appear to have supply chains that are fully compliant with this new law.

Supermarket policies do generally say that their suppliers must use good animal husbandry and farm management to minimise the need for antibiotics. However, in practice supermarkets are frequently allowing their suppliers to use intensive-farming methods known to cause higher levels of disease and of antibiotic use [6].

Cóilín Nunan, Policy and Science Manager at the  Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, said:

“It is no longer legal to use antibiotics to prop up farming methods that are causing animals to fall sick. So to avoid misusing antibiotics, and to keep animals healthy, supermarkets must now take strong and urgent action to improve animal husbandry and welfare.”

The report is the fourth assessment of the antibiotics policies of the leading UK supermarkets, and finds that supermarket policies have made some progress since the first assessment was published in 2017. This has contributed to a 59% reduction in total farm antibiotic use and a 81% reduction in the use of the highest-priority critically important antibiotics since 2014 [7].

However, most supermarket antibiotics policies still only apply to own-brand products, which are frequently of UK origin. Branded products, which account for 48% of grocery spending in Britain [8], and most imported meat, fish, dairy and eggs are not covered by the supermarkets’ rules for responsible antibiotic use. 

Science Advisor to the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics Cóilín Nunan said:

“Globally, it is estimated that about two thirds of all antibiotics are used in farm animals [9]. Yet supermarkets are often not checking whether imported food they are selling has been produced with routine antibiotic use. This is unfair on UK farmers, who are held to higher standards. More importantly it is a threat to the health of consumers.” 

Dr Ron Daniels, Vice President of the Global Sepsis Alliance, said:

“Antibiotics are the bedrock on which we've built much of modern medicine. Without these vital medicines the risk of routine procedures, like elective surgery or cancer chemotherapy, will skyrocket. The stark reality is that multi-drug resistant bugs are causing life-threatening infections in thousands of patients in our hospitals today, with many sadly dying as a consequence of sepsis. That’s why all of society needs to urgently come together to address the drivers for rising rates of AMR urgently and cohesively, including addressing our desire to consume meat produced in intensive farming.”

The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics is calling on all supermarkets to swiftly strengthen their animal-husbandry and antibiotics policies across all products, and urges the Government to ensure that the new legislation on farm antibiotic use is fully implemented. 

Key findings of the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics Supermarket report:

• Supermarkets are failing to ensure that their suppliers are fully compliant with new legislation prohibiting the use of antibiotics to compensate for poor hygiene and inadequate animal husbandry. 
• Most supermarkets continue to sell fast-growing breeds of broiler chickens, requiring six to nine times more antibiotics per bird than slower-growing breeds. Only M&S sells only slower-growing broilers. Waitrose will do so from 2026.
• Supermarket antibiotics policies frequently only cover their own-brand ranges, and so branded products and imported foods can still contain animal products that have been produced on farms with irresponsible antibiotic use.
• M&S is the best-performing supermarket in terms of responsible antibiotic use policy. M&S’s policy covers its full supply chain, as they do not stock branded animal products and apply their policy to imported goods.
• Tesco and Waitrose are the next-best performing supermarkets.
• M&S and Morrisons are the only supermarkets to have a full ban on the use of the antibiotic colistin, a last-resort antibiotic in human medicine. 
• Only Aldi, M&S, Sainbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose publish good or acceptable data on their antibiotic use. ASDA, Coop, Iceland and Lidl publish no information on their antibiotic use. 
• Iceland has a particularly weak antibiotics policy. It does not monitor antibiotic use in its supply chain and has no specific restrictions on the use of the highest-priority critically important antibiotics.
• The online supermarket Ocado is the only supermarket with no antibiotics policy. Ocado has told the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics that it is developing a policy and will publish it later this year. Ocado was not included in earlier Alliance assessments, and has not had as long to develop antibiotics policies and to benefit from advice and guidance from the Alliance.

Notes:  

1. Read the full 'Resistance and Responsibility' report here.
2. World Health Organization, Antimicrobial Resistance, 21 November 2023, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antibiotic-resistance 
3. Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborators, 2021. Global burden of bacterial anti- microbial resistance in 2019: a systematic analysis, The Lancet, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02724-0/fulltext  
4. National Risk Register, 2023 Edition.
5. The Veterinary Medicines (Amendment etc.) Regulations 2024, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2024/567/contents/made
6. New regulations on farm antibiotics for Great Britain and how they compare to the regulations in the European Union, https://saveourantibiotics.org/media/2169/new-regulations-on-farm-antibiotics-for-great-britain-and-how-they-compare-to-the-regulations-in-the-european-union.pdf 
7. Most supermarket suppliers use very fast-growing breeds of chickens, allow the early weaning of piglets, and the routine tail docking of piglets, which are known to contribute to higher levels of antibiotic use. Most pigs and poultry reared for sale in supermarkets are raised indoors in crowded conditions with poor hygiene and high levels of stress, where infectious disease can spread more easily.
8. Veterinary Antimicrobial Resistance and Sales Surveillance 2022, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/veterinary-antimicrobial-resistance-and-sales-surveillance-2022 
9. Kantar, 2024. British grocery price inflation drops again as minds turn to the summer, https://www.kantar.com/uki/inspiration/fmcg/2024-wp-british-grocery-price-inflation-drops-again-as-minds-turn-to-the-summer 
10. Mulchandani et al., 2023. Global trends in antimicrobial use in food-producing animals: 2020 to 2030, PLOS Global Public Health, https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0001305 
11. The 11 supermarkets are: Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Iceland, Lidl, Morrisons, M&S, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose. Ocado was not included in earlier Alliance assessments and has not had as long to develop an antibiotics policy or to benefit from advice and guidance from the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics. As a result, Ocado has not been included in the report’s overall assessment table. However, Ocado will be fully included in any future assessment.
12. Story of the major outbreak of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella in the UK March 2024. https://www.itv.com/news/2024-03-19/polish-chicken-imports-may-be-banned-as-salmonella-cases-rise
13. The Alliance to Save our Antibiotics is an alliance of health, medical, civil-society and animal-welfare groups campaigning to stop the overuse of antibiotics in animal farming. It was founded by Compassion in World Farming, the Soil Association and Sustain in 2009. Our vision is a world in which human and animal health and well-being are protected by food and farming systems that do not rely on routine antibiotic use.