Contamination

Antibiotic Residues in Meat

Bad for all of us and also disgusting

30%

of antibiotics used in the UK are given to farmed animals.¹

35%

of meat tested in London supermarkets exceeded the “acceptable daily antibiotic intake” for consumers.²

2,000

people died in the UK in one year due to overuse of antibiotics by factory farms.³

What It Is

Factory farms are disgusting, overcrowded, filthy places where disease and sickness run rife. To try and keep as many animals alive as possible, factory farms use huge amounts of antibiotics. And some of those antibiotics can be found in the meat.

Yes, the industry has been forced to reduce their use of antibiotics in recent years, but it has reduced them from a sky-high amount to a still-far-too-high amount. Still, 30% of the UK’s antibiotics are given to animals in farms when they would not be needed if conditions were not so bad.⁴ The pig industry uses the most, but chickens, turkeys, dairy cows, fish and other factory-farmed animals are given large amounts too.

The meat industry states categorically that there are no antibiotic residues in meat.⁵ But that is not true. In 2024, meat and dairy bought from London supermarkets was tested for the presence of antibiotics. Researchers found that, not only did the milk and meat contain residues, 35% of the samples actually exceeded the acceptable daily antibiotic intake levels for three different antibiotics.⁶