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Six big school districts raise chicken standards

Six of the largest school districts in the United States are setting new standards for chicken. New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Miami-Dade County and Orlando County combined to form the Urban School Food Alliance last year for collective buying power and to adopt certain policies.

Now the six districts say they will only buy chicken that has been raised without antibiotics, fed only vegetarian feed (no animal byproducts) and raised humanely according to the National Chicken Council Animal Welfare Guidelines. The Los Angeles Unified school district is also requiring no hormones used.

The six districts feed nearly 2.9 million students each day. They say if a supplier cannot meet the demand they must supply a written plan stating when they will be able to fill the order.