August 3, 2005

Smithfield to further reduce antibiotic use in pigs

Hog producer and pork processor Smithfield Foods, foodservice giant Compass Group North America and a US non-profit organization Environmental Defense have announced a collaborative agreement on Aug 2, which states Compass's new low-antibiotic pork policy for its suppliers.

This policy will help reduce antibiotic use in the hogs Smithfield, which supplies pork to Compass.

Though Smithfield Foods has eliminated the use of antibiotics used to treat humans in its hogs some years back, it will also now stop feeding growth-enhancing antibiotics routinely to healthy hogs.

However, the agreement precludes giving young hogs disease-preventing antibiotics during stressful weaning times.

Smithfield's vice president for environmental, community and government affairs Dennis Treacy said this was the first time the company agreed to have a third party document its low-antibiotic use.

Compass also plans to apply its new low-antibiotic pork policy to chicken-products suppliers and will require its pork and chicken suppliers to report their antibiotic use and reduce it over time.

Fast-food chain McDonald's have also agreed to a similar agreement that curbs growth-enhancing antibiotic use in chickens that McDonald's buys, said Environmental Defense's Corporate Partnerships director Gwen Ruta.