Operating in 291-unit quick-service burger chains based in California, with most units in the West and Southwest U.S, the famous all-American In-N-Out Burger is working with its suppliers to achieve a human antibiotic free beef used in the chain's burgers.
This was In-N-Out's statement made in its Irvine, California-based burger chain to the campaign sought by a coalition of environmental and public health groups pressuring restaurant and fast food chains to stop using meat raised with low-dose antibiotics. The advocacy group also called for action for McDonald's, KFC, Olive Garden and Subway.
According to the federal Interagency Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance, the extensive use of antimicrobial drugs has resulted in drug resistance that threatens to reverse the medical advances of the last seventy years. Antibiotics have been used so widely and for so long, antibiotic resistance have become a major public health threat. The WHO Global Strategy for Containment of Antimicrobial Resistance added that governments should terminate or rapidly phase out the use of antimicrobials for growth promotion if they are also used for treatment of humans.
In 2001, the Antimicrobial Use and Resistance, which states, in part, "American Medical Association (AMA) is opposed to the use of antimicrobials at non-therapeutic levels in agriculture, or as pesticides or growth promoters, and urges that non-therapeutic use in animals of antimicrobials (that are used in humans) should be terminated or phased out."
California adopted a legislation in 2015 limiting the use of antibiotics in livestock. Sadly, the implementation of the law is set on Jan. 1, 2018. As for the response of major fast food chains in this call of public health and environmental advocates, McDonald's has set a timetable to get rid of antibiotic use in chicken. Wendy's and KFC would like to do a similar response too. Subway has committed to do away from antibiotic use in all meat, saying chicken will be free of routine antibiotic use by April. Other chains have well-publicized their antibiotic-avoidance policies, including Chipotle Mexican Grill, Shake Shack, Papa John's, Chick-fil-A and Panera Bread.
In-N-Out started this good cause and let's hope that the other fast food chains will follow.
