Corporate food retailers, meat supply chains and the responsibilities of tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR)

该项目通过将范围研究和重要的网络活动集中在迄今为止在学术和政策辩论中缺失的一个环节上，即企业食品零售商的关键作用，为解决抗菌素耐药性（AMR）的议程做出了开创性的贡献。该项目的目的是解决零售商在鸡肉和猪肉供应链中应对抗菌素耐药性挑战的责任，并调查这一不断演变的角色，以及未来在英国和全球范围内如何塑造这一角色。在涉及抗生素使用的动物集约化养殖数十年的背景下，越来越清楚的是，虽然抗菌素是维持农场健康和福利的必要工具，但关键问题是它们在动物身上的不适当和不成比例的使用，从而减少了对人类的可用性。整个食品行业都担心，这会导致沙门氏菌、弯曲杆菌和大肠杆菌等某些细菌的耐药性日益增强，给该行业带来压力，要求制定和实施更负责任的使用标准。连锁超市是一组具有战略定位的关键行为体，以应对减少食品供应链中抗生素使用和提高消费者意识这一全球挑战，作为应对抗生素耐药性的一部分。该项目将探讨零售商在应对抗菌素耐药性挑战方面的作用，包括通过其海外和国内商店网络，以及通过贯穿全球南北空间的供应链。具体而言，该项目通过在英国提出范围研究和传播活动来解决这一角色，在英国，政策领导得到认可，企业零售力量已经建立。英国政府食品标准局（FSA）作为项目合作伙伴的支持将推动该项目的政策参与势头，促进项目前的范围界定研讨会和研究结束时的传播研讨会。这反映了项目目标与FSA新出现的优先事项之间的密切一致性。该项目的目标是：(i)通过其鸡肉和猪肉供应链绘制和模拟涉及企业食品零售商的当前抗菌素耐药性挑战；（ii）评估英国当前和不断发展的企业零售战略和标准，以减少鸡肉和猪肉供应链中抗生素的使用；（iii）考虑消费者参与在提高农业中负责任使用抗生素标准方面的作用；（iv）促进企业食品零售商与英国更广泛的机构政策和科学网络之间的对话，以制定应对AMR的未来战略。这些目标将通过为期18个月的四个项目阶段来实现，涉及定量和定性方法，包括：英国企业食品零售商在其供应链中面临的AMR问题的贸易数据的映射和建模；采访英国零售商的食品技术专家和食品标准决策者；以及对一些英国肉类生产商的采访。一个项目网站、一份利益相关者报告和在伦敦举行的项目结束研讨会将作为学术出版物的补充，以便将范围界定研究的结果传达给非学术受益人，并形成关于企业食品零售商在应对抗生素耐药性方面的角色和责任的不断发展的战略。

This project makes a path-breaking contribution to the agenda for tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by focusing scoping research and significant networking events on a link that has so far been missing from academic and policy debate - the pivotal role of corporate food retailers. The aim of the project is to address the responsibility of retailers in tackling the AMR challenge in the context of their chicken and pork supply chains, and to investigate this evolving role and how it might be shaped in the future, in the UK and at a global scale. Against a backdrop of decades of intensive farming of animals involving the use of antibiotics, it is becoming clearer that while antimicrobials are a necessary tool to maintain health and welfare on the farm, the key issue is their inappropriate and disproportionate use in animals thereby reducing availability for humans. There is food industry-wide concern that this is leading to growing resistance amongst certain bacteria such as Salmonella, Campylobacter and E-coli, placing pressure on the sector to develop and implement standards for more responsible use.Supermarket chains are a key set of actors strategically positioned to address the global challenge of reducing antibiotic use in food supply chains and raising consumer awareness as part of tackling AMR. The project will address the role of retailers in navigating the AMR challenge through their overseas as well as their national store networks, and through supply chains that flow through spaces of the global South as well as the North. Specifically, the project addresses this role by proposing scoping research and dissemination events in the UK, where policy leadership is acknowledged and where corporate retail power is well-established. Driving the momentum of the project's policy engagement will be the support of the UK government's Food Standards Agency (FSA) as a Project Partner facilitating both a pre-project scoping workshop and a dissemination workshop at the end of the research. This reflects close alignment between the project's objectives and the emerging priorities of the FSA.The objectives of the project are: (i) to map and model the current AMR challenge involving corporate food retailers through their chicken and pork supply chains; (ii) to evaluate current and evolving corporate retail strategies and standards in the UK for reducing antibiotic use in chicken and pork supply chains; (iii) to consider the role of consumer engagement in raising standards for responsible use of antibiotics in farming; and (iv) to facilitate increased dialogue between corporate food retailers and wider institutional policy and scientific networks in the UK, in order to shape future strategy for tackling AMR. These objectives will be met through four project phases conducted over eighteen months and involving both quantitative and qualitative methods that include: the mapping and modelling with trade data of the AMR problem facing UK corporate food retailers in their supply chains; interviews with retailers' food technologists and food standards policy-makers in the UK; and interviews with a sample of UK meat producers.A project website, a stakeholder report and an end-of-project workshop in London will complement academic publications, in order to communicate the findings of the scoping research to non-academic beneficiaries and to shape evolving strategy regarding corporate food retailers' roles and responsibilities in tackling AMR.