According to The Straits Times, to prove the success of the technology, Kee Song conducted a study over May to August last year and invited six international companies in the food, agricultural and pharmaceutical industries to take part in an experiment involving the breeding of 180,000 chickens in its Johor farm.

Results of the study showed that chickens which were bred using its own strains of lactobacillus - a good bacteria commonly used in the production of yoghurt and cheese - had a higher survival rate of 98 to 99 per cent compared to chickens fed with antibiotics, which had a survival rate of 95 per cent. The former were also less likely to suffer from diarrhoea.

Even though antibiotics are widely used by poultry farmers to yield plumper chickens that are more disease-resistant, research has shown that some bacteria or 'superbugs' in these chickens will develop resistance to antibiotics in the long run, said Dr Chia Tet Fatt, the scientist behind the technology.