YUM Yum Brands Inc

By Jacob Bunge 

Fast-food giant KFC committed to halting the use of chicken raised with antibiotics commonly used to treat humans, yielding to consumer groups that have warned for years that such practices can help foster dangerous bacteria.

The Yum Brands Inc. chain said it would cut antibiotics in its poultry chain by the end of next year, following other restaurant companies that have scaled back antibiotics used to keep chickens, hogs and cattle healthy on farms and feedlots where animals are raised by the tens of thousands. Chick-fil-A Inc., McDonald's Corp., and Subway have pledged reductions in antibiotic use. Suppliers like Perdue Farms Inc., Pilgrim's Pride Corp. and Tyson Foods Inc. made similar shifts.

The meat industry for decades used antibiotics to treat illness, to prevent disease from spreading and to help animals gain weight faster. But the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration have warned that widespread antibiotic use on farms can hasten the development of bacteria resistant to the drugs. The FDA asked the industry stop using antibiotics to foster weight gain by the beginning of 2017.

While KFC trails other companies in reducing antibiotic use, its heft as a chicken-meat buyer for more than 4,100 U.S. restaurants could now make chicken grown with fewer antibiotics the majority of the U.S. supply, said Matthew Wellington of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which has campaigned to scale back use of the drugs. He said KFC's commitment could push the portion of chickens raised in the U.S. without antibiotics from around 40% currently to over half.

"It's putting this into the mainstream of U.S. chicken production," Mr. Wellington said.

KFC said cutting such antibiotics out of its U.S. poultry supply chain by the end of 2018 will require changes on 2,000 farms that supply it with chicken strips, wings, drumsticks and other products.

Write to Jacob Bunge at jacob.bunge@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 07, 2017 16:27 ET (20:27 GMT)

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