Responsible

Antibiotic Use

Maple Leaf Foods is committed to minimizing or eliminating the use of antibiotics wherever possible, while maintaining high standards of animal care.

Raised Without Antibiotics program

We are actively engaged in industry and government efforts to reduce antibiotic use in livestock operations, including increasing veterinary oversight of antibiotics prescribed to livestock.

We reduce antibiotic use through our Raised Without Antibiotics (RWA) program, which focuses on providing excellent management, health and nutrition to our animals so that antibiotics are rarely required. Should any animal, herd or flock that is in our RWA program become sick, all treatment options are considered in consultation with a veterinarian, including administering an antibiotic. If an antibiotic is administered, the treated animal, herd or flock is removed from the program. We follow stringent operating protocols to protect the health of our animals that are raised without antibiotics, which is one of our animal care priorities.

How we’re raising our animals without the use of antibiotics

Antibiotic use at our owned hog production operations

In 2021, antibiotic use in our owned pigs was an average of 39 mg of active ingredient per kg of pork produced based on antibiotic quantity dispensed. Of those pigs, 56% were Raised Without Antibiotics and never received any antibiotics throughout their entire lifetime. Since 2014, we’ve reduced our antibiotic use by 98.9% across our hog operations.