Perdue recently announced expanded retail distribution of its PERDUE® SIMPLY SMART® NO ANTIBIOTICS EVER™ and PERDUE® HARVESTLAND® NO ANTIBIOTICS EVER™ chicken.
Perdue has recently announced that it is now raising more than half of its chicken with no antibiotics of any kind—human or animal.
In a recent survey, Technomic found that 56% of consumers thought premium poultry (for example, no antibiotics ever, cage free and organic poultry) should be available at the restaurants they visit, and 63% said they were willing to pay more for premium poultry.
While some other chicken companies and some major foodservice operators are promising to remove human antibiotics from chicken production, Perdue goes the extra step by completely eliminating the use of any antibiotics in its NO ANTIBIOTICS EVER™ foodservice products.
“We believe consumers are concerned about the use of all antibiotics, not just some,” said Chairman Jim Perdue. “That is why we’re giving foodservice operators a choice that carries transparency and confidence.” Across its HARVESTLAND®, PERDUE® and KINGS DELIGHT® brands, Perdue offers a wide variety of NO ANTIBIOTICS EVER™ products in foodservice, plus a growing number of NO ANTIBIOTICS EVER™ turkey and pork items.
Perdue recently announced expanded retail distribution of its PERDUE® SIMPLY SMART® NO ANTIBIOTICS EVER™ and PERDUE® HARVESTLAND® NO ANTIBIOTICS EVER™ chicken, including an advertising and consumer education campaign designed to help consumers understand the difference between “NO ANTIBIOTICS EVER™” and other recent claims that still use some antibiotics.
“The retail campaign, which includes TV advertising, online promotions and billboards, will increase consumer awareness of Perdue’s ‘no antibiotics ever’ products, and we expect this to have an added positive impact on restaurant patrons,” said Doug Wickman, Vice President of Foodservice Marketing and Business Development. “Plus, with Perdue Foodservice, operators don’t have to wait for ‘no antibiotics ever’ products – we have them now.”
Chicken companies typically use antibiotics four ways. Human antibiotics are injected into the egg in the hatchery. Human antibiotics can also be put into the feed for faster growth promotion. Or human antibiotics can be mixed with the water or feed to treat or prevent disease. The fourth way is to use animal-only antibiotics.
“We completely eliminated the first two uses in September of 2014, and have improved the way we raise chickens so that 96% of our flocks never require treatment with a human antibiotic,” said Bruce Stewart Brown, DVM, Perdue’s Senior Vice President of Food Safety, Quality and Live Production. “However, we didn’t stop there. We’re going to continue to reduce our use of animal-only antibiotics, so that we’re raising as many chickens as we can with no antibiotics of any kind – and offering that choice to consumers.”
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