LOUISVILLE: KFC, the world’s largest chain of fried chicken restaurants, may face pressure from consumer and environmental groups to change how its poultry is raised after McDonald’s Corp said it would switch to chicken raised without human antibiotics.

McDonald’s will phase out chicken raised with antibiotics that are important to human health over two years to allay concern that use of the drugs in meat production has exacerbated the rise of deadly “superbugs” that resist treatment.

Within days, retailer Costco Wholesale Corp said it aimed to eliminate the sale of chicken and meat raised with human antibiotics.

KFC is owned by Louisville, Kentucky-based Yum! Brands Inc, which has no publicly stated policy on antibiotic use in the production of meat it buys. Chick-fil-A, another chicken restaurant chain that competes with KFC, says about 20% of the chicken it served was raised without any antibiotics, and that its entire supply chain would be converted by 2019.

Both McDonald’s and Yum! are stepping up efforts to win back younger and wealthier diners wooed away by chains such as Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc and Panera Bread Co, which boast antibiotic-free meats and other high-quality ingredients.

Yum!’s KFC restaurants in China two years ago suffered a massive sales hit following local media reports that a few poultry farmers supplying KFC fed excessive levels of antibiotics to their chickens.

“The train has left the station,” Bob Goldin, a food services company consultant at Technomic Inc in Chicago, said of McDonald’s influence on US chicken production standards.

Yum! which also owns the Taco Bell and Pizza Hut chains, declined to discuss its standards for antibiotic use in meat production.

“The chicken served in our US restaurants is USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) high quality, and free of antibiotics,” the company said in an emailed response to Reuters queries.

Yum! operates separate supply chains in China and the US. While antibiotics have made for big headlines in China, the issue also has surfaced at home.

A Reuters investigation last year found that KFC supplier Koch Foods Inc from November 2011 to July 2014 had given some of its flocks antibiotics critical to fighting human infections, even though its website stated otherwise. — Reuters

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on March 17, 2015.