Meat, dairy and eggs that misuse antibiotics could still be making their way onto UK supermarket shelves due to inadequate policies, according to a new report from the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics.

The report shows that despite some improvements in supermarket antibiotic policies, most imports and branded products are not covered by the supermarket’s own rules for responsible antibiotic use. 

This means that there is no reliable way for consumers to avoid buying food produced with irresponsible antibiotic use, warns the Alliance. 

Bans on antibiotic usage
The government is in trade talks with countries like Australia that use certain antibiotics for growth promotion, which is banned in the UK. The ban on growth promoters does not apply to imported food, a loophole that neither the government nor most supermarkets are addressing.

The Alliance, of which Sustain is a founding member, has assessed the publicly available antibiotic policies of the UK’s ten leading supermarkets and found that they all now have a policy aimed at ending routine preventative antibiotic use in their supply chains. Two years ago, only six supermarkets had such a rule.

However, most supermarkets only apply their antibiotic policies to some or all of their own-brand products. Some policies only cover own-brand fresh meat, dairy and eggs of UK origin, leaving frozen produce, ready meals, ingredients and branded products with no restrictions on antibiotic use, other than minimum legal standards.According to the Alliance, most supermarkets only apply their antibiotic policies to some or all of their own-brand products.

Responsible produce
Supermarkets are responsible for ensuring that all meat, dairy, and eggs they sell are produced without misusing antibiotics and come from farms with good husbandry, says Suzi Shingler, of the Alliance. 

“The current mishmash of rules means that consumers cannot tell whether this is the case or not. Some imported food may even be produced by using antibiotics to make animals grow faster, a practice which has been banned in the UK for 15 years.”

As the UK seeks to reach new trade deals with non-EU countries, it is more important than ever to have the same standards for imported and British produce. 

That’s why, today, the Alliance has launched a petition urging supermarkets to apply their rules for responsible antibiotic use to all animal products sold in their stores, Shingler notes. 

The petition is supported by Dr. Chris Van Tulleken, an infectious diseases doctor and MRC Clinical Research Fellow at University College London Hospital.

He says: “We need to get antibiotic misuse out of the food chain as it contributes to the global antibiotic resistance crisis. If we no longer have reliable, effective antibiotics, we will see many more deaths due to infection. This will even affect young people, including children.”

Industry safety concerns
Meat has often come into the spotlight for a range of safety reasons. 

Earlier this year, a report released by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Food Safety Authority revealed that a sizable proportion of Salmonella and Campylobacter bacteria is still resistant to antibiotics commonly used in humans and animals.

In August, the Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance called on countries to significantly reduce the levels of antimicrobial drugs used in global food systems. The move includes stopping the use of medically necessary antimicrobial drugs to promote growth in healthy animals and using antimicrobial drugs more sparingly.

In a similar move, Israeli biopharmaceutical company Mileutis prepared for the final commercialization stages for Imilac, a solution that helps dairy cows avoid antibiotic resistance. The company forecasts that future applications of its solution can reduce the usage of antibiotics in dairy farms by up to 90%.