Fast-food chain Chick-fil-A has sparked a social media backlash after announcing that it will soon allow certain antibiotics in the chickens it raises, citing supply issues.
Chick-fil-A restaurants in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico will transition “from chicken raised with No Antibiotics Ever (NAE) to chicken raised with No Antibiotics Important to Human Medicine (NAIHM), starting in the spring of 2024,” the company said in a statement posted on its website this week.
They are facing a genuine supply issue. A different company made a sudden move because they wanted to maximize profits.
Tyson, one of the main chicken processors, killed their no-antibiotics program at the end of 2023. They moved from claiming meat came from chickens that had had no antibiotics used (NAE) to claiming no human-relevant antibiotics had been used (NAIHM).
The rest of the market can’t meet the demand for NAE, at least not in the short term.