If you look at the official statement on McDonald's official website （ http://news.mcdonalds.com/Corporate/news-stories/McDonald ’s-USA-Announces-New-Antibiotics-Policy-an）， It has to be said that some media's technology to stir up the emotions of Chinese consumers can only be described as highly skilled.

In McDonald's statement, at least two points have been rewritten in many Chinese media reports: first, antibiotics that have an important impact on people have been stopped（ antibiotics that areimportant to human medicine） , not all antibiotics. For those antibiotics used only for chickens, they can still be used. Second, this plan is aimed at the American market, and does not mention any market outside the United States (that is, all other countries are still the same). Of course, these "other countries" include China, but McDonald's does not give special treatment to any specific country at all, and the Chinese media has deliberately highlighted China, once again mobilizing the sensitivity of "Chinese consumers are inferior", which is naturally exciting.

Why did McDonald's take this measure? Is it really for the health of the American people?

Whether McDonald's or other food companies, any business action is to make money - to earn money from consumers in other countries, as well as from American consumers.

In recent years, McDonald's sales have been very weak. As the saying goes, if you want to change, Obama became president by "America needs to change" (although he does not know how to change), McDonald's naturally needs to change. Not long ago, McDonald's changed its president and started a new marketing offensive. Any marketing offensive always needs to come up with something new - "stop antibiotic chicken" is one part of it. This strategy has nothing to do with food safety (McDonald's made it clear that the breeding industry cannot do without antibiotics), but only "make some changes" to attract attention and win back some consumers. Their original words are "our consumers need food that they feel good to eat - from farmland to restaurants - these measures have taken a step forward in the direction they expect"（ Ourcustomers want food that they feel great about eating – all the way from thefarm to the restaurant – and these moves take a step toward better deliveringon those expectations ）In plain English, it means that consumers need what they think is good, and we just meet their needs (whether their needs are reasonable or not is not our concern).

Based on the same consideration, McDonald's also announced that it will choose milk that is not suitable for growth hormone. They also made it clear that "although there is no obvious difference between the milk produced by cows that use growth hormone and those that do not use growth hormone, we understand that this is an important thing for our consumers" (While nosignificant difference has been shown between milk derived from rbST-treatedand non-rbST-treated cows, we understand this is something that is important toour customers) 。 If we follow the idea of "discriminating means discriminating", American keyboard patriots can always scold McDonald's for "selling hormone free milk in the Chinese market and selling hormone free milk to American compatriots" in the past - because China does not allow the use of growth hormone in milk, McDonald's milk sold in China is "hormone free".

McDonald's is the largest chicken consumer in the United States, and their decision will force other peers to follow suit. Such market changes will inevitably lead to changes in chicken suppliers, which will increase the breeding costs. In the end, the market has yet to determine how much this cost increase will be. But we can be sure that in the short term, it may be the links in the production and marketing supply chain to bear the burden, but in the end, it must be the market reshuffle, and the winners at each level of the production and marketing chain will make more money - their money will ultimately come not from chickens, but from people who eat chickens.