Poultry Meat

Snapshot

• The British Poultry Council (BPC – representing nearly 90% of the UK poultry meat sector) started an antibiotic stewardship programme in 2011.
• The structure of the sector makes data capture, monitoring and implementation of programmes more straightforward than in other livestock sectors.
• The sector stopped prophylactic use of antibiotics and stopped all use of highest priority antibiotic colistin in 2016, and reported a 44% reduction in antibiotic use between 2012 and 2015.
• The usage target the chicken meat sector set for 2018 through to 2020 was 25mg/kg and for the turkey sector, over the same time period, 50mg/kg.
• The BPC stewardship report published in June 2018 showed that targets had been met for both chickens and turkeys with use of 9.85 mg/kg and 45.1 mg/kg respectively.
• Since then, the sector has remained below targets, albeit with a slight rise in use in 2018 and 2019
• However in 2019, fluoroquinolone use was nil in chickens and halved in turkeys; colistin use remains nil
• Target will remain as 25 mg/kg for chickens and 50 mg/kg for turkeys, but there will be a review of the targets in 2021
• For more detail on progress against the 2017-2020 the poultry meat targets, and new targets 2021-2024, please refer to the full Targets Task Force Report 2020.

News Updates

New antibiotic targets released for the UK livestock sectors

23 Nov 2020

British Poultry Council releases antibiotic stewardship report

15 Oct 2020

Machine learning targets antibiotic resistance in chickens

08 Sep 2019

New report shows progress towards achieving farm antibiotic targets

18 Nov 2018

RUMA confirms position on ‘antibiotic-free’ labelling

08 Oct 2018

FSA publishes survey of antimicrobial resistance in bacteria in chicken and pork

05 Sep 2018

Interim report gives picture of progress towards farming’s antibiotic targets

27 Jul 2018

UK farming triple winner at Public Health England’s Antibiotic Guardian awards

28 Jun 2018

Latest poultry meat report highlights 82% reduction in the total use of antibiotics in six years

04 Jun 2018

Multiple resistance genes found in commercial chickens in China

22 May 2018

Poultry research centre to focus on antibiotic alternatives

25 Apr 2018

Food report from pressure groups misleads on antibiotics

19 Apr 2018

Initiatives

British Poultry Council – The BPC antibiotic stewardship scheme

Jul 2017

The BPC Antibiotic Stewardship programme update June 2017

Jul 2017

Useful Organisations