Our turkey and chicken are raised without antibiotics as a routine feed additive, and our hamburgers are made from natural beef.
The declining effectiveness of antibiotics against common bacterial infections is a growing crisis in human medicine. This decline stems from heavy use of these precious medicines not just in human medicine, but also in agriculture. By an FDA finding, 80 percent of the antibiotics used in this country are fed to farm animals that are not sick, in order to promote growth or prophylacticly treat diseases caused by questionable animal-husbandry practices. As a socially responsible company, Bon Appétit is committed to helping address the public health threat from antibiotic resistance.
In 2002 Bon Appétit formed a partnership with Environmental Defense Fund to look at decreasing antibiotic use in meat and poultry. As a result, we issued the farthest-reaching policy on antibiotics use to date: Bon Appétit only buys chicken raised without the routine, "non-therapeutic" use of antibiotics that are medically important to humans. This policy was extended to purchases of turkey breast in 2005 (and to all turkey in 2010), making us the first restaurant company to take a stand on antibiotic use in turkey production. As of March 2007 all of the hamburgers we serve are made from "natural" ground chuck. While there is no strict legal definition of "natural," our suppliers commit to using:
- No antibiotics (ever)
- No added growth hormones (ever)
- No animal byproducts in feed (ever)
As viable commercial supplies of other reduced antibiotic meats become available, we will expand our purchasing of these wholesome products.
