While U.S. regulators and industry representatives have been arguing for decades about the proper regulation of antibiotic use in livestock, the market has been moving ahead of them, pushed by consumers who are concerned about antibiotic resistance and want some say in the way their food is produced. I pointed it out when McDonald’s decided in March to eliminate routine antibiotic use in the chicken it buys, and again last month when production giant Tyson Foods said it would do the same for the chickens it raises.

On Thursday came more evidence for the consumer-driven approach: The influential nonprofit School Food FOCUS (Food Options for Children in the United States), joined by the nonpartisan Pew Charitable Trusts, announced that it has brokered an