Antibiotic-Free Chicken in Canada: What the Label Means

"Raised without the use of antibiotics" means the bird was never given an antibiotic, from the hatchery to the processing plant. It is a claim about how the chicken was raised. It does not mean other chicken is full of antibiotics: all chicken sold in Canada must be free of antibiotic residues.

Three white meat chickens on grass — Photo by Erwin Bosman on Unsplash

What "raised without antibiotics" means

No antibiotics at any stage. Not in the feed, not in the water, and not by injection, for the whole life of the bird.
That includes ionophores. Ionophores are feed additives that control a common gut parasite in chickens. They are not used in human medicine, but Health Canada classes them as antibiotics, so a bird that received them cannot carry this claim.
Vaccines are allowed. A vaccine is not an antibiotic, and birds raised without antibiotics are vaccinated like any other flock.
The claim has to be proven. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) regulates the claim. A company that makes it needs records and a system that show the claim is true for every bird.

What happens if a bird gets sick?

Sick birds are treated. Withholding treatment would be cruel, and the programmes do not ask farmers to do it. A flock that needs antibiotics is treated and then sold as regular chicken, without the "raised without antibiotics" label.

Does regular chicken contain antibiotics?

No. When a flock is treated, there is a required waiting period, called a withdrawal period, before the birds can go to processing. That gives the medicine time to leave the bird's system, and the CFIA tests chicken for residues. The difference between the two kinds of chicken is how the bird was raised, not what is left in the meat.

The whole Canadian chicken industry has also cut back. Farmers stopped the preventive use of the antibiotics most important to human medicine (Category I) in May 2014, and of Category II antibiotics by the end of 2018.

What about hormones?

Hormones and steroids have been banned in Canadian poultry since 1963. A "no added hormones" label on Canadian chicken is true of every chicken in the store, not only the one carrying the label.

"Animal by-product free"

This is a separate claim about the feed. The birds are raised on a vegetable and grain diet, with no rendered animal products such as meat or bone meal. Some antibiotic-free chicken is animal by-product free too, but not all of it, so look for both on the label.

Cericola Farms' antibiotic-free chicken

For almost 15 years, Cericola Farms partnered with growers in Ontario and Quebec to process and deliver chicken raised without antibiotics and without animal by-products (AABF).
Unlike most competitors' antibiotic-free lines, it was animal by-product free as well.
The process was inspected and evaluated as a whole system, which supported the antibiotic-free and animal by-product free claims on the label.
Those products are no longer available. Cericola Farms' plants have been part of Maple Leaf Foods since 2018 and 2021.