Consumers increasingly demand antibiotic-free meat and poultry. So how do processors prevent contamination during the pre-harvest stage without using this common antimicrobial?
“Antimicrobial resistance [AMR] is frequently being blamed, at least in part, on use of antimicrobials in production,” says Keith E. Belk, professor, department of animal sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colo. “There is not good evidence about whether this is an accurate assumption or not, but our studies thus far indicate that very little AMR is transmitted via the food [meat] chain.”