90% of meat and poultry sold to San Francisco public services contains antibiotics
Last year, San Francisco City has spent at least $986,000 on meat and poultry in order to determine the use of antibiotics on the food delivered by suppliers.
The report released by the local authorities shows that more than 90% of the meat supplied comes from animals raised with antibiotics, informs The San Francisco Examiner.
The report is required under San Francisco’s Antibiotic Use in Food Animals Ordinance, which was introduced and passed into law in October 2017. The law also requires large grocers to report antibiotic use in the production of meat and poultry sold in their stores, but the proposed deadline for their first reporting isn’t until April 7, 2019.
Nevertheless, the first step into this task was full of "challenges in collecting reliable data", as Deborah Raphael, director of the Department of the Environment, mentioned.
"Some meat and poultry vendors who were asked for details regarding the use and types of antibiotics administered to their animals simply did not engage in the discussion. This may reflect a lack of tracking systems across most of the meat and poultry industries or potentially fears about repercussions from consumers concerned about antibiotic use", said Raphael in the report. Sysco, Aramark and US Foods are the distributors under contract with the four City Departments.
Among the largest purchases of meat and poultry, last year, was $859,000 spent by the Public Health Department for San Francisco General Hospital and Laguna Honda Hospital. The Recreation and Park Department purchased nearly $60,000 of meat and poultry to feed families staying at Camp Mather. The Juvenile Probation Department spent $67,000 on meat and poultry. The Sheriff’s Department didn’t report its spending totals.
"This is the first time some of these questions are being asked. Vendors aren’t used to accounting for this information", explained a spokesman from the Department of the Environment. For example, Aramark didn't manage to respond in time to the question regarding the food delivered to the jail.
One solution to avoid the use of meat with antibiotics on the large scale is to add more vegetarian items to the menu, recommended the report.
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