Products for school lunch programs will include chicken nuggets, sandwich patties, chicken rings and chicken popcorn. Perdue also affirmed the company's commitment to producing additional school lunch products with no-antibiotics-ever chicken. The additional products are sold under the Kings Delight, Clux Delux and Perdue brands.
“We’ve been providing consumers with the option for no-antibiotics-ever products since Perdue launched the Harvestland brand in 2007,” said Jennifer Armstrong, director of sales, K-12 for Perdue Foodservice. “As a leader in no-antibiotics-ever production, it made sense for us to bring the same choice to school-lunch programs. These include the kinds of chicken products most popular with students, and we’re now making them from chicken raised with absolutely no antibiotics ever.”
The products meet the School Food FOCUS – The Pew Charitable Trust Standard to Minimize the Use of Antibiotics in Poultry, as well as standards set by the Urban School Food Alliance.
“We were the first chicken company to give consumers the added assurance of USDA Process Verified Programs,” Armstrong added. “Now, school lunch programs carrying our no-antibiotics-ever USDA Process Verified products can offer these important attributes to their students, while at the same time reassuring parents that their kids are eating responsibly-raised chicken.”
Urban School Food Alliance requirements include USDA Process Verified Programs to verify the no-antibiotics-ever claim, along with raised on an all-vegetarian diet with no animal by-products. Should animals become ill — including those raised as no-antibiotics-ever or organic — they will be treated as medically appropriate as part of Perdue’s animal welfare commitment. However, if antibiotics are used, those animals are not marketed as no-antibiotics-ever or organic.
