‘Misleading’ claim over stunned halalpoultry rejected 

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) hasrejected a claim made against poultry supplier Winterton Brothers that itspre-stunned chicken could not be called “100% halal”. 

The firm advertises itself as a family-runbusiness specialising in supplying halal poultrymeat, and its websiteprominently advertises that it offers “original 100% halal”, which wasconsidered misleading by the complainant.

Halal, which simply means “permitted”,requires animals to be killed by a Muslim, who offers a short blessing beforedelivering a clean cut to the neck with a razor sharp blade, severing thecarotid artery, jugular vein and windpipe.

In practice, most halal poultry in the UKsubmerged in an electrified water bath set to deliver a “recoverable stun”before killing. Some Muslims oppose this intervention, claiming it is morehumane ? and more in line with their beliefs ? to deliver the kill withoutstunning.

But most halal certification bodies inBritain accept pre-stunned meat as halal, and it was for this reason that theASA did not uphold the complaint made against Winterton Brothers.

It said that the company’s poultrymeat,which in this case was supplied by Highbury Poultry, was consistent with normalstandards for halal slaughter.

“The website of the Halal Food Authoritystated that they did allow the stunning of birds and animals, provided thatprocess did not kill the animals and that it was carried out by certainapproved methods,” said the ASA ruling.

“Although we recognised that there was somedivision of opinion on the role of stunning in the halal slaughtering process,the requirements for halal slaughter did not appear to prohibit stunning and weunderstood that the vast majority of halal meat sold in the UK was slaughteredusing that method.”

Winterton Brothers was approached forcomment.

Link-> https://www.poultryworld.net/UK/Articles/2018/5/Misleading-claim-over-stunned-halal-poultry-rejected-290553E/