Issuance of Halal certificates and System of Authentication
The process of issuing Halal certificates begins with our experienced Inspectors making a visit to the slaughterhouse and conducting an in depth assessment of its current practices.
The Inspectors will forward their report on to the Supervisor who will provide advice on any improvements to ensure strict compliance to Shariah.
The Supervisor forwards a recommendation to the Operational Manager who will revisit the premises and ensure Non Stunned Manual Slaughter for all its Halal products. Our aim is to encourage the business to operate within a strict Non Stunned environment and we work to assist them to achieve this outcome.
Once the Operational Manager has made the decision, a signed report is forwarded to the Directors for their final sign off.
At this juncture a certificate is provided to certify the slaughter process as authentic.
All paperwork and reports are held on site for a duration of time which is appropriate dependent upon the specific nature of the document. For example all current and new businesses will be held on file for up to 6 years which is equal to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. For all other information this will be held for a period of 6 months securely stored as per Data Protection legislation and will be destroyed following the 6 months period.
Stunning
We receive many questions about our procedures regarding stunning and what our stance is on this matter. We must firstly remember that according to Islamic Shariah , the life of the animal (to be slaughtered) is the most important point. For this simple and clear reason we do not work in favour of stunning and make sure that most of our outlets are stun free. We also try and educate people as best as we can to make sure they understand that manual non stunned meat is best.
However, stunning can be used as part of the slaughtering process as long as it guarantees that the animal is still alive before it is actually slaughtered. We have conducted research ourselves (even on small chickens) to test this and to find out if there are levels of ‘stunning’ which still make sure that the animal will remain alive. Our research has shown that as long as the voltage delivered is controlled and adjusted dependant on the size and type of animal about to be slaughtered, then stunning can achieve its purpose. Therefore, HMB is not in favour of stunning where the necessity does not arise.
In regards to Beef, we must consider the size of the animal and difficulties with slaughtering compared to poultry. We still prefer a non-stun approach followed by manual slaughter however we also understand there may be requirement to stun Cattle prior to slaughter. Under such circumstances we do allow the use of stun but we are very careful to ensure it remains in line with guidelines set out to us in Shariah.
Another question we get asked is about mechanical slaughter – we are NOT in favour of mechanical slaughter at all.