Chickfila to END "no antibiotics ever" chicken

[storewanderer]

Some states like Oregon, mandate cage free eggs. Really stupid law that just drives up prices.

But does it really? After California passed its cage free law, prices shot up because the industry wasn't ready (they were focused on fighting the law rather than preparing to follow it). However, over time, prices came back down to normal.

When cage free eggs are an option, they are more expensive simply because those who want them will be willing to pay extra for them. But when they are the norm, the price usually reverts to whatever everyone is willing to pay for eggs in general.

This studyhttps://openurl.ebsco.com/EPDB%3Agcd%3A ... 7356&crl=c suggests that the cost increase is 25-73 cents a dozen, or about 2 to 6 cents per egg, which is quite trivial in the context of current grocery inflation.

But...............................I do not think it really matters much in the grand scheme of things. Organic, cage free, antibiotics, Non GMOs, etc.............................people are eating themselves into a shorter life span. If any of this really mattered to the larger population MOST fast food establishments would be the first to go out of business.

When food became convenient and easy and fast, our life spans began to slowly decline. We can all deny it passionately but it does not change the results.

There is where I may sound like a contradiction but something like "no antibiotics ever" chicken is important to me. I do not want to consume large quantities of chicken that are pumped up with who knows what. It appears some large chicken suppliers have gone back recently on the "no antibiotics ever" pledge. This makes me even more suspicious as to what is going on here and why this is going on. What is this new "antibiotic" they want to pump chickens with and they are so desperate to pump so many chickens with it that they go back on the "no antibiotics ever" pledges previously made?

https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articl ... in-chicken

As with any new thing, medical treatment, medicine, vaccine, whatever, you do not always know the effect this new thing or change will have, until the change plays out for a while. It may all end up fine and if so that is great I guess... but for now... it is suspect what the potential impact of this is.

But the cage free egg thing- there is no difference to the human consuming the egg on a standard cage free vs. caged egg. Only higher cost. Nothing more.

[HCal]

As with any new thing, medical treatment, medicine, vaccine, whatever, you do not always know the effect this new thing or change will have, until the change plays out for a while. It may all end up fine and if so that is great I guess... but for now... it is suspect what the potential impact of this is.

Maybe I'm confused, but is Chick-Fil-A using a new antibiotic, or the same ones that other companies have been using for decades? Unless they have developed a new one, I would think the potential impacts are well known by now.

But the cage free egg thing- there is no difference to the human consuming the egg on a standard cage free vs. caged egg. Only higher cost. Nothing more.

There may not be any difference to the human consuming the egg, but some people care about things that don't directly impact them. It's no different from not wanting to eat chocolate from slave/kids labor, even if the product is indistinguishable.

[storewanderer]

As with any new thing, medical treatment, medicine, vaccine, whatever, you do not always know the effect this new thing or change will have, until the change plays out for a while. It may all end up fine and if so that is great I guess... but for now... it is suspect what the potential impact of this is.

Maybe I'm confused, but is Chick-Fil-A using a new antibiotic, or the same ones that other companies have been using for decades? Unless they have developed a new one, I would think the potential impacts are well known by now.

But the cage free egg thing- there is no difference to the human consuming the egg on a standard cage free vs. caged egg. Only higher cost. Nothing more.

There may not be any difference to the human consuming the egg, but some people care about things that don't directly impact them. It's no different from not wanting to eat chocolate from slave/kids labor, even if the product is indistinguishable.

You don't know if their producers are using a new antibiotic that got approved recently or ones that have been used for decades... that is the point of "no antibiotics ever"- you don't have to worry about that issue.

The people who care about things that don't directly impact them can buy all the cage free eggs they want, and pay the price, but stop forcing producers to prematurely go 100% overnight to free eggs and stop forcing other consumers to pay inflated prices as a result of their feelings. As I said, with the inflation, people are really starting to have enough of these moves that push prices up.

There probably was a way to transition to cage free eggs without a sharp sudden price increase or to slow the price increase to a phase in over time, in a phased approach over a number of in a given state for producers like must be 10% cage free in 2020, 20% cage free in 2021 etc. But that wouldn't be good enough for these activist groups who behave like spoiled brats and demand what they want immediately without any consideration for any other factors or the real world.

[veteran+]

As with any new thing, medical treatment, medicine, vaccine, whatever, you do not always know the effect this new thing or change will have, until the change plays out for a while. It may all end up fine and if so that is great I guess... but for now... it is suspect what the potential impact of this is.

Maybe I'm confused, but is Chick-Fil-A using a new antibiotic, or the same ones that other companies have been using for decades? Unless they have developed a new one, I would think the potential impacts are well known by now.

But the cage free egg thing- there is no difference to the human consuming the egg on a standard cage free vs. caged egg. Only higher cost. Nothing more.

There may not be any difference to the human consuming the egg, but some people care about things that don't directly impact them. It's no different from not wanting to eat chocolate from slave/kids labor, even if the product is indistinguishable.

Well said!

[storewanderer]

As with any new thing, medical treatment, medicine, vaccine, whatever, you do not always know the effect this new thing or change will have, until the change plays out for a while. It may all end up fine and if so that is great I guess... but for now... it is suspect what the potential impact of this is.

Maybe I'm confused, but is Chick-Fil-A using a new antibiotic, or the same ones that other companies have been using for decades? Unless they have developed a new one, I would think the potential impacts are well known by now.

But the cage free egg thing- there is no difference to the human consuming the egg on a standard cage free vs. caged egg. Only higher cost. Nothing more.

There may not be any difference to the human consuming the egg, but some people care about things that don't directly impact them. It's no different from not wanting to eat chocolate from slave/kids labor, even if the product is indistinguishable.

Well said!

Then you don't want to eat any meat or animal made products (for instance milk) because these products all come from a "factory farm" model just like caged eggs do... and the animal treatment is not exactly great.

[ClownLoach]

Yes, the subject line is correct. This chain made a pledge to sell chicken with "no antibiotics ever" in 2014. It is now ending that pledge.

The new pledge is something about no antibiotics important to human medicine. Whatever that means. And whoever concludes what constitutes "important." And the tract record and history of said antibiotics.

This is a poor move and deserves significant PR.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/c ... hicken.amp

So basically their suppliers are all switching back to antibiotics. This is a larger issue than just Chick-Fil-A. The big poultry producers got wiped out with the bird flu and they have obviously determined that they lose more when they have to slaughter millions of chickens in very inhumane ways then dispose of them. You can complain all you want about Chick-Fil-A because it's convenient, but if they can't get enough chicken for their chain right now then they aren't going to decide to ration the chicken, switch to hamburgers, etc. They're going to have to accept different product, and at least they have maintained a better standard than others will (no human use antibiotics).

They're the retailer not the supplier. The suppliers deserve the publicity because they are so prone to disease outbreaks due to the poor conditions they operate in their factory farms where one sick bird flies over and infects a million chickens who then have to be "destroyed" which usually means literally smothering them to death by sealing off the warehouse so they die of suffocation or worse adding chemical foams to both suffocate and drown them. If the suppliers in factory farms didn't pack ten million birds per warehouse and give them each about four square inches to stand on they wouldn't need antibiotics because they wouldn't be so prone to disease.

I'm sorry, but I would rather they go back to non-human use antibiotics versus senselessly killing millions of birds in a manner far worse than how they would have been slaughtered if they were being taken for food use. And I would like to see more discussion on the poor facilities that create the need for the antibiotics in the first place. Address the root cause. Complaining about Chick-Fil-A and others is only addressing a symptom, not the disease itself.

[HCal]

There probably was a way to transition to cage free eggs without a sharp sudden price increase or to slow the price increase to a phase in over time, in a phased approach over a number of in a given state for producers like must be 10% cage free in 2020, 20% cage free in 2021 etc. But that wouldn't be good enough for these activist groups who behave like spoiled brats and demand what they want immediately without any consideration for any other factors or the real world.

As I said, the California law took effect 4 years after it was passed. How much more time did they need? Would 6 years have been enough? 8?

If anything, it was the egg producers behaving like spoiled brats. They were yelling about how prices would shoot through the roof and there would be massive shortages and whatnot, and here we are a few years later and the prices are essentially back to normal.

[bryceleinan]

Yes, the subject line is correct. This chain made a pledge to sell chicken with "no antibiotics ever" in 2014. It is now ending that pledge.

The new pledge is something about no antibiotics important to human medicine. Whatever that means. And whoever concludes what constitutes "important." And the tract record and history of said antibiotics.

This is a poor move and deserves significant PR.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/c ... hicken.amp

So basically their suppliers are all switching back to antibiotics. This is a larger issue than just Chick-Fil-A. The big poultry producers got wiped out with the bird flu and they have obviously determined that they lose more when they have to slaughter millions of chickens in very inhumane ways then dispose of them. You can complain all you want about Chick-Fil-A because it's convenient, but if they can't get enough chicken for their chain right now then they aren't going to decide to ration the chicken, switch to hamburgers, etc. They're going to have to accept different product, and at least they have maintained a better standard than others will (no human use antibiotics).

They're the retailer not the supplier. The suppliers deserve the publicity because they are so prone to disease outbreaks due to the poor conditions they operate in their factory farms where one sick bird flies over and infects a million chickens who then have to be "destroyed" which usually means literally smothering them to death by sealing off the warehouse so they die of suffocation or worse adding chemical foams to both suffocate and drown them. If the suppliers in factory farms didn't pack ten million birds per warehouse and give them each about four square inches to stand on they wouldn't need antibiotics because they wouldn't be so prone to disease.

I'm sorry, but I would rather they go back to non-human use antibiotics versus senselessly killing millions of birds in a manner far worse than how they would have been slaughtered if they were being taken for food use. And I would like to see more discussion on the poor facilities that create the need for the antibiotics in the first place. Address the root cause. Complaining about Chick-Fil-A and others is only addressing a symptom, not the disease itself.

That’s the problem. I’m sure Chick-fil-A, Panera, and others have not wanted to make the choices they’ve been making regarding antibiotics, however, the meat has to come from somewhere and at the volume they need.

[storewanderer]

There probably was a way to transition to cage free eggs without a sharp sudden price increase or to slow the price increase to a phase in over time, in a phased approach over a number of in a given state for producers like must be 10% cage free in 2020, 20% cage free in 2021 etc. But that wouldn't be good enough for these activist groups who behave like spoiled brats and demand what they want immediately without any consideration for any other factors or the real world.

As I said, the California law took effect 4 years after it was passed. How much more time did they need? Would 6 years have been enough? 8?

If anything, it was the egg producers behaving like spoiled brats. They were yelling about how prices would shoot through the roof and there would be massive shortages and whatnot, and here we are a few years later and the prices are essentially back to normal.

The producers and politicians could have mutually determined how much time was needed.

5.49 per large cage free eggs dozen is not "back to normal" and that is the going price in NorCal at Safeway, Save Mart, etc.

Eggs routinely were under $2 per dozen or even $1 per dozen frequently before all this cage free stuff started. Maybe you never saw that since CA screwed its egg market up so badly many years ago with multiple regulations first SSFES or whatever then cage free.

When you close a market to the standard national products prices go up. That is what California did with its egg rules. Fewer suppliers for a narrowly required product. As more states require cage free prices should fall and have fallen but are still far higher than pre cage free and our friends in NorCal are still paying way higher egg prices than other states with cage free rules.

Many eggs seem to be from outside CA. I've been buying eggs at Target- the brown dozen which is 2.59 here. Lowest price around. They come from producer in Iowa twice and the last ones came from OR. I did notice the Eggland's Best eggs they had were showing as coming from CA. I also bought some Simple Truth "Hipster" Eggs a few weeks ago that were on markdown for around 2.29, which are from a producer in LA.

[storewanderer]

Yes, the subject line is correct. This chain made a pledge to sell chicken with "no antibiotics ever" in 2014. It is now ending that pledge.

The new pledge is something about no antibiotics important to human medicine. Whatever that means. And whoever concludes what constitutes "important." And the tract record and history of said antibiotics.

This is a poor move and deserves significant PR.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/c ... hicken.amp

So basically their suppliers are all switching back to antibiotics. This is a larger issue than just Chick-Fil-A. The big poultry producers got wiped out with the bird flu and they have obviously determined that they lose more when they have to slaughter millions of chickens in very inhumane ways then dispose of them. You can complain all you want about Chick-Fil-A because it's convenient, but if they can't get enough chicken for their chain right now then they aren't going to decide to ration the chicken, switch to hamburgers, etc. They're going to have to accept different product, and at least they have maintained a better standard than others will (no human use antibiotics).

They're the retailer not the supplier. The suppliers deserve the publicity because they are so prone to disease outbreaks due to the poor conditions they operate in their factory farms where one sick bird flies over and infects a million chickens who then have to be "destroyed" which usually means literally smothering them to death by sealing off the warehouse so they die of suffocation or worse adding chemical foams to both suffocate and drown them. If the suppliers in factory farms didn't pack ten million birds per warehouse and give them each about four square inches to stand on they wouldn't need antibiotics because they wouldn't be so prone to disease.

I'm sorry, but I would rather they go back to non-human use antibiotics versus senselessly killing millions of birds in a manner far worse than how they would have been slaughtered if they were being taken for food use. And I would like to see more discussion on the poor facilities that create the need for the antibiotics in the first place. Address the root cause. Complaining about Chick-Fil-A and others is only addressing a symptom, not the disease itself.

That’s the problem. I’m sure Chick-fil-A, Panera, and others have not wanted to make the choices they’ve been making regarding antibiotics, however, the meat has to come from somewhere and at the volume they need.

I see Tyson moved back to antibiotics. They were no antibiotics ever. They've also been closing plants. Not sure what they are up to.

Foster Farms as I understand it has been no antibiotics ever on various of their products and still is (based on packages I looked at over at Safeway and Wal Mart) but there are some items they slot that are missing that promise.

This Perdue however seems to be committed to no antibiotics ever. Their fresh product is not sold out west, only frozen.
https://www.perdue.com/knowbetter/

https://www.perdue.com/perdue-way/no-antibiotics/