Tyson Foods Inc. is the latest food company to spend a lot of money on feel-good advertising designed to enhance earnings. At a New York press conference yesterday, Tyson Chief Executive Dick Bond was quoted as saying he believes the conversion to antibiotic-free fresh chicken should "have a positive effect on our earnings," but he offered no projection. 

At the news conference, Tyson showed a commercial from that campaign in which an announcer says serving antibiotic-free chicken should help parents to "feel good about feeding your family." The Wall Street Journal reported that the products will be more expensive but the company provided no premium estimate beyond asserting that they would be "affordable for mainstream consumers."

The move is aimed at eliminating the sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics in Tyson brand chicken. You probably can’t read the label below, but there is a full-page version in today’s USA Today that I saw while stranded at the Philadelphia airport. It says:

Chicken raised without antibiotics
No hormones administered
No artificial ingredients

Except Tyson will still use therapeutic antibiotics. And in the small print, it says:

Federal regulations prohibit the use of hormones in chicken.

Who says food isn’t marketed based on perceptions of food safety? Now if someone would start marketing based on microbial food safety.