03 September 2026
The UK poultry meat sector has achieved its lowest-ever antibiotic usage, reducing total active antimicrobial ingredients to 11.15 tonnes in 2025, an 86.4% drop compared to the 2012 baseline.
According to the British Poultry Council’s (BPC) 2026 Antibiotic Stewardship Report, the industry also marked a major public health milestone with the near-elimination of Critically Important Antibiotics (CIAs), cutting their use by 96.8% since 2012. Key achievements highlighted in the report include:
- Zero Colistin Use: Maintained for the ninth consecutive year.
- Fluoroquinolones Curtailed: Total use fell to just 0.001 tonnes across the sector, with zero administrations in chicken meat production.
- No Prophylaxis: Reached a decade of zero routine preventative antibiotic use.
- Target Compliance: All poultry categories, chickens, turkeys, and ducks, performed comfortably beneath Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture Alliance (RUMA) ceiling targets.
Today, the sector's therapeutic treatments rely almost entirely on first-line, narrow-to-medium-spectrum agents, led by amoxicillin (66.3%) and tetracyclines (16.9%).
