Emphasizing One Health can boost consumer trust in poultry

Following One Health principals can help poultry producers protect their flocks’, consumers’ and the planet’s health, but communicating its value can help build consumer trust in poultry meat.

Highlighting the benefits of a One Health approach to consumers can help to build trust, allowing them to make informed decision and reducing the risks of misplaced fears damaging demand for poultry products. | Elanco Animal Health
Highlighting the benefits of a One Health approach to consumers can help to build trust, allowing them to make informed decision and reducing the risks of misplaced fears damaging demand for poultry products. | Elanco Animal Health

One Health sees attaining optimal health for people, animals and the environment as a collaborative effort across sectors. Communicating its benefits to consumers has become particularly relevant to poultry and other animal protein producers in light of COVID-19.

Before COVID-19, we already knew that consumers rated food safety among their top concerns when purchasing food for their families, along with taste, cost and the source or origin of the food.

Perceived food safety risks can quickly lead to changes in purchasing behavior. For instance, recent unfounded fears about poultry in India resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak demonstrated how food safety not only needs to be managed across the food supply chain but also understood by consumers to maintain their confidence.

While there have been some very misplaced concerns about the connections between farm animals and COVID-19, it has been understood by consumers, governments and food retailers that meat, fish, milk and eggs are an essential part of a healthy diet.

However, the health of animals, people and the planet are intrinsically linked, and everyone must be committed to finding scientific solutions and expertise that make a difference across all. 

The World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and many other global regulatory and food industry bodies call this a One Health approach. Policymakers, animal health industries and food companies alike should be guided by this principle.

Everyday examples

We must communicate this approach more widely, to share it with consumers so that they can be confident that the food they buy for their families is safe, and understand that good animal health on-farm contributes to food safety, as well as environmental health and animal welfare.

A practical example of a One Health approach is the poultry industry’s focus on food safety through investment in the control of Salmonella.

We all know that Salmonella is a significant food safety problem that affects the health and lives of millions of people around the world.

One-third of foodborne outbreaks reported in the European Union are caused by Salmonella. When people become sick with Salmonella (in poultry, this is principally caused by Salmonella enteritidis and Salmonella typhimurium), some may need antibiotic treatment and this increases risks associated with antimicrobial resistance. Investment in comprehensive food safety programs and protocols that include vaccination, therefore, contribute very significantly to One Health.

Similarly, maintaining intestinal health and integrity in broilers by preventing coccidiosis and associated bacterial enteritis is also needed for One Health. Protecting intestinal integrity requires diligent management of hygiene and housing, good flock nutrition and the appropriate use of anticoccidials to control coccidiosis.

Coccidiosis predisposes poultry to clostridial bacterial infections, which can lead to necrotic enteritis, which may then need to be treated with medically important antibiotics. Maintaining intestinal health with appropriate use of anticoccidial feed additives (which are not medically important and unrelated to antibiotics used in human medicine), helps to minimize medically important antibiotic use in broilers and associated concerns with antibiotic resistance.

Asian-egg-farmer

Following the principles of One Health benefits birds, humans and the broader environment. Tong_stocker | Shutterstock.com

Healthier animals, safer food

However, maintaining good animal health on-farm to achieve these positive human health outcomes off-farm also requires an understanding by consumers of these One Health links, from farm to fork. For example, providing public communications content about the links between farm animal and human health helps farmers to continue investing in and using interventions that support food safety, such as biosecurity, vaccines and all that is required to deliver intestinal health in poultry.

Public communication about One Health should include messages about the role of healthy animals in improving food safety, the role of vaccinations in reducing antimicrobial resistance (AMR)-related risks, the successes of antibiotic stewardship programs on farms, and the role of healthy animals in reducing the environmental footprint of food production. 

Now more than ever, poultry producers need to communicate how they ensure food safety and deliver One Health. It starts with the animal and results in positive impacts for animals, people and the planet.

 

 

SIDEBAR

How One Health balances chicken, human and planetary health

www.WATTAgNet.com/search?q=One+health

 

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