Dear Sir/Madam
I recently became aware that a number of my local restaurants are serving halal meat but not advertising it. I became aware of this quite by accident. One day my favourite dish on the menu of Banana Tree (a SE Asian restaurant) was gone – when I queried this with the waitress she said it was because it contained pork and the kitchen staff didn’t want to touch it. I then asked whether the meat being served in the other dishes was halal and she said: ‘Yes, it is’. I then asked why, if it was halal meat, wasn’t there any sign to make that clear, and the reply was: ‘There is no legal requirement to mention the method of slaughter of meat – if a customer asks then we must tell them’. I’ve raised this with my local councillors and my local MP and both were surprised by this. They checked it with my local food standards agency and they have confirmed that what the waitress said is correct. It seems that, in order to make it mandatory to display the method of slaughter, the law would need to be changed.
I don’t have any problems with restaurants that clearly display the halal symbol in their windows and menus and so allow customers to make an informed decision about whether they want to eat the meat or choose a vegetarian alternative. My concern is that most customers eating in restaurants and take-aways in this country will naturally assume that the meat which they are eating is normal meat, but in fact a lot of times they are unwittingly eating halal meat.
