To think the new halal and kosher labelling bill is a great idea?

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https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2026-02-24/debates/8FDB8A16-AE50-4246-ADC9-70191907499B/FoodLabelling(HalalAndKosherMeat)

personally I’m not bothered that meat is killed in certain ways, I think if you eat meat you need to make peace with the entire process being pretty horrible for the animals.

But if you’re going to have issues with halal slaughter, you also need to have an issue with kosher slaughter. It’s the exact same process, just with different prayers said. The slaughter process is the same in both methods - the animal has its throat slit and they are left to have the blood drain out.

Agreed. I also buy my meat from a local butcher sourcing from very local farms and have actually seen some of the animals and know some of the farmers personally.

I agree that there should be highest welfare standards achievable around slaughter. Stunning has been deemed as necessary to reduce suffering to the extent that a law requiring it is in place. I have no idea why some apps are suggesting it makes no difference.

So the animal welfare experts of the EU and UK are talking nonsense and the huge amount of trouble and cost taken to make detailed regulations and laws on stunning is a huge waste of time? Interesting.

I've literally never seen anyone who is against halal slaughter say they approve of kosher slaughter. It really sounds like you are somehow trying to make Jewish people out to be the bad guys here? You're taking such an incredible weird and seemingly purposely provocative stance on this.

That makes no sense at all.

Why are all these slaughterhouses supplying a product that costs them more to produce but not labelling it and therefore not being able to charge a premium?

That makes no business sense at all.

I'm not referring to farmers (although I'm sure there are ones that aren't great), I'm talking about the whole concept of rearing an animal for the purpose of human consumption.

You keep referring to halal slaughter but haven't once mentioned kosher, which is 100% unstunned, so there was making thinking you only have a problem with Muslims. Apologies if I'm wrong!

Why wouldn't it make sense? Just because you can't see a halal sign (can you read Arabic?) doesn't mean it isn't there. There are also codes that indicate something is halal/kosher without the official logo being there. Also meat is imported and often does not require an official label, so why should a company cost themselves extra? Slaughter houses are private businesses so it must make financial sense to them.

No I keep referring to non stun slaughter if you read my posts. I have mentioned halal where relevant. Funnily enough kosher food seems to be labelled more effectively so is not being given to people without their consent. To be crystal clear for you, I have an issue with ALL non stun slaughter, be it halal or kosher.

Who else rears animals commercially for food if not farmers? I really can’t see the distinction you are attempting to make.

Just because you can't see a halal sign (can you read Arabic?) doesn't mean it isn't there Generally when you can’t see something, it’s because it’s not there. The packaging of supermarket meat does not tend to have Arabic writing on it anywhere. Have you looked recently?

There are also codes that indicate something is halal/kosher without the official logo being there.

What codes are these? Do you mean the code for the slaughterhouse that you can do an internet search on to eventually find if it complies with standard EU regulations or not.? It’s hardly ‘clear’ labelling.

This is my point. PP is claiming it is more expensive to run a halal (PP said halal, not me) slaughterhouse. I said that doesn’t make good business sense if you can’t charge that additional cost to your customers by clearly labelling the product. So either halal slaughterhouses selling unlabelled but more expensive to produce meat that they can’t charge for or it is actually cheaper to produce this meat. What are your thoughts?

Kosher appears to be clearly labelled and they charge a premium so are not relevant to this.

There are many labels that you might not see because you aren't looking for them. I eat halal so yes I see it because I look for it. I never noticed kosher hechshers (sp) because I wasn't aware of them, but now I know the main ones I recognize them. The majority of meat in supermarket butchers will not be halal, but chicken breasts usually are.

Kosher and halal can't really be compared on price point due to the difference in demand. I'm not sure that the difference in price is justified or if it's just that shops can charge much higher because they have a monopoly. AFAIK kosher meat is confined to Jewish owned shops and not available in Asda/Morrisons the way that halal is (I know there are prepackaged kosher meals in Tesco/Sainsbury's but I'm talking about fresh butcher style meat). There is a lot less demand for kosher than there is halal, so there will be a premium on that too. However, a poster confirmed that the hind of a kosher slaughtered animal is not considered kosher for Jewish people, so it's sold to other suppliers and obviously will not be labelled as such.
Regardless, slaughterhouses sell to the supplier, they are not usually selling directly to the supermarkets so whether or not it's labelled does not affect them.

It's important that halal and kosher meat is labelled. If it's labelled as such, I'll know not to buy it.

It's worrying that halal meat in particular is finding its way into supermarkets, hospitals, prisons, schools etc, and people are consuming it without knowing.

Well it's not "finding it's way in", someone in charge of those organizations has made the decision to do so.

Non stunned slaughter should be banned, both halal and kosher. This is fair. All communities need to comply with the law.

True. The secondary school near me serves all halal meat in its meals. It has a Muslim population of about 35%. No doubt the school thinks it's fine to serve halal meat to non Muslims and to not inform them.