Fast food investors in antibiotics plea
Print Edition
A GROUP of institutional investors managing a combined US$1 trillion yesterday called on restaurant chains to end the systematic use of antibiotics in their meat and poultry supply chains.
The companies targeted by the group of 54 investors include J D Wetherspoon, McDonald’s and Domino’s Pizza.
They said the use of antibiotics in livestock causes resistant bacteria to develop, which in turn can spread to humans.
“The investors are responding to warnings from the World Health Organization that irresponsible antibiotics practices are leading the world towards a ‘post-antibiotic era’ where routine operations will no longer be possible and many infections no longer treatable,” they said in a statement.
The investors, brought together by the Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return (FAIRR) initiative, said none of the companies targeted had any comprehensive policy of tackling the overuse of antibiotics and this posed “a significant risk to their investment.”
“These large food companies are key ingredients in the portfolios of most of our pensions and savings — thus it is a case of proper risk management to ask them to work out how they will meet this challenge,” Jeremy Coller of Coller Capital, one of the signatories, said.
Investors fear the cost of tighter regulation in the face of antbiotics overuse, but also warned that the reputation of restaurant chains stands to suffer as they are “contributing to a global threat to human health which currently kills an estimated 700,000 people per year.”
Other chains targeted include The Wendy’s Company and Yum! Brands.
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