The QS system exists since 2012 and is run by Qualität und Sicherheit GmbH, a sectoral quality system for various food products. Data collection covers ca. 95% of German broiler, veal, and pork production, and also includes turkeys and ducks.

Animal subcategories: Three weight categories/animal subtypes are distinguished among pigs: sows + sucklers, fatteners and weaners. Turkeys are subdivided into starters, fatteners and combination farms that keep both age groups.

Input: Vets need to provide the number of treated animals, number of treatment days and the antimicrobial product used, whereas farmers need to provide the number of pig places per farm and, specifically for poultry, data on production location. For poultry, the famer needs to provide data allowing the assessment of the animal population for each cycle.

As in HIT, no dose- or weight-based unit of measurement is used in analysis but a count-based indicator similar to the ‘treatment frequency’ is calculated, called the ‘therapy index’, hence neither requiring the use of animal weights at treatment. In addition to the farm-level result in total, a separate therapy index for fluoroquinolones and 3rd/4th generation cephalosporins is calculated.

Benchmarking is done every three months, for a period of six months (= time-frame). All QS-adhering farms having the respective weight category are included in the reference population. The median and upper quartile are calculated as reference values.

Farmers are informed quarterly on their therapy index and the distribution of therapy indexes in the respective animal group.