Halal meat without your knowledge
For several weeks, the controversy over halal meat has raged in France, where it is picked up by several presidential candidates. In particular, some schools are criticized for providing halal meals to students, which offends defenders of secularism.
However, controversy risks breaking out here. The team of the Dumont program for lunch revealed on Tuesday that all of the Olymel chickens from Saint-Damase are slaughtered according to Muslim rites.
However, according to the company, there is no need to identify it on the packaging. "It is not necessary," said Olymel spokesperson Richard Vigneault, since "it doesn't change the nature of the product." He adds that the process meets the requirements of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and that "if customers don't ask for it, we don't have to market it under the halal label".
The Halal Meat Association, which issues certificates of authenticity, requires that employees of the Muslim faith participate daily in slaughter operations. "We asked these people to put someone in front of the machine before starting it, to pronounce the name of Allah and to put two or three people after the slaughter to see if they were slaughtered correctly “, Says the founder of the Association, Abdelhamid Aouchiche. Three Muslim inspectors are even busy visiting the facilities unannounced to monitor that the whole process is respected, conditions accepted by the slaughterhouses who sign the contract.
Seven other companies would have complied with the list provided by the Association, including another giant, Maple Lodge. Here too, the poultry slaughtering process would be recognized, regardless of the consumer's religion. The distributor of Metropolitan Meats in Montreal, Samih Bahsoun, explains that to reduce costs, slaughterhouses that make halal convert all their production.
Mr. Bahsoun also convinced the former leaders of the Avicomax slaughterhouse in Drummondville to turn exclusively to the manual slaughter ritual, the strictest of Islam. “They put the halal logo when necessary, but all of their chickens are halal. It costs less to do like this. That's how it is in most slaughterhouses that make halal. ”
Producing halal: how much does it cost?
At Olymel, we categorically deny that religion is used as a hiring criterion in Saint-Damase. We still admit to paying "the costs associated with certification" and that the employees who apply the criteria allowing halal certification are "paid by us (Olymel), probably", explains the spokesperson who did not specify how much money was given to the Muslim association. However, he admitted to paying “several thousand dollars” each year, money collected by the leaders of the Abou Bakr Essedik Mosque, rue Jean-Talon in Montreal.
The Halal Meat Association was born in December 2002 to counterbalance the controversial imam Said Jaziri, who was expelled from Canada in 2007 because of his illegal status. “He wanted to impose paying 50 cents a pound to mark his halal stamp, even if it was not halal. [...] So we created the Association to allow the traceability of the meat ”, explains Mr. Aouchiche, also owner of the Tassili butcher, in Montreal.
Since last May, the organization has operated under the Abu Bakr Essedik mosque, led by Imam Mohamed Habib Marzougui. "We control the majority of the chicken market in Quebec," says the imam, who collects annual and monthly contributions to certified abattoirs.
Olymel operates two chicken slaughterhouses in Quebec and produces 80 million poultry a year. The plant located in St-Damase has a slaughter capacity of 750 poultry per week. The company, which employs over 000 people, markets its products mainly under the Olymel, Lafleur and Flamingo brands.
We should also remember that a majority of products in grocery stores have also been certified kosher for several years, in order to meet the requirements of the Jewish community.
http://quebec.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/03 ... 41572.html
