World Antibiotic Awareness Week 2019 – Feed

Antibiotic resistance is a very real threat to the wellbeing and safety of animals and humans alike. One of the most current issues facing the food and agricultural industries is the issuing of antibiotics being administered in feed.

When it was first discovered that antibiotics could be used to help improve growth in animals it became common practice to add low levels of antibiotics to feed. Another benefit of this was to increase efficiency, with little effect on mortality rates. However, it has since been highlighted that this practice can lead to antibiotic resistant bacteria strains remaining in animal tissue and entering the food chain.

Antibiotics were routinely added to animal feed to act as a growth promoter and, in 2005, this was banned by the European Commission (1831/2003/EC). Adding low levels of antibiotics enhanced the time taken to finish animals for processing, however this has the potential to increase antimicrobial resistance. More recently, the Food and Drug Administration of America (FDA) have banned the use of in-feed antibiotics, unless they have been prescribed to treat a specific illness.

Randox Food Diagnostics offer complete solutions for the detection of antibiotic residues within feed, pre-medicated feed and cereal samples. The screening of antibiotic drug residues in helps secure the global supply chain, ensuring that these residues cannot be passed into the animals and ultimately the food chain for human consumption. Randox Food’s Growth Promoter Multiple Matrix Array allows for the detection of up to 9 prevalent antibiotic residues, including beta-agonists, ractopamine, trenbolone and more, from a single sample of feed.

Along with our dedicated antibiotic test kits, Randox Food offers mycotoxin screening for feed, validated across a range of matrices including rye flour, wheat, feed and many more. 

For more information on the antibiotic screening arrays available contact us at: info@randoxfooddiagnostics.com