The US fast food giants McDonald’s, Subway and Taco Bell have failed to meet the antibiotic reduction commitments they made for their cow’s meat supply chains almost a decade ago, according to a new report by advocacy groups the Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT) and the US PIRG Education Fund.
The report found that all three companies did achieve their earlier goal of eliminating medically important antibiotics from their US chicken flesh supply, but each has fallen short of parallel promises made for “beef”.
Steven Roach, co-author of the report and director of the Safe & Healthy Food Program at the Food Animal Concerns Trust, said, “When it came time to fulfil the commitment, they didn’t do anything.”
McDonald’s set a target in 2018 to establish antibiotic reduction goals for its beef by 2020 but never did so. Instead, in a 2022 progress report, the company replaced its plan to cut overall antibiotic use with a softer, responsible-use approach. A 2025 update simply restated its existing goals without disclosing any progress, and McDonald’s has not said publicly whether it is still pursuing the targets it set. As for 2nd September 2026, the company had not responded to a request for comment from Sentient Media, which wrote about this story first.
Subway pledged in 2015 to serve only cow and pig flesh raised without routine antibiotics by 2025, while Taco Bell committed in 2019 to cutting its cow-related antibiotic use by 25% by the same year, later reporting it had reached around 15% by the end of 2022. Neither chain has said publicly whether it met its 2025 target, and Roach said neither company responded to emails or letters requesting updates
About 66% of all medically important antibiotics used in the US are given to Farmed Animals raised for food, most not to treat sick individuals but to prevent infections linked to crowded, intensive farming conditions. Overuse of these drugs drives antibiotic resistance, which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention links to 2.8 million resistant infections and more than 35,000 deaths in the country every year.
