Aldi apologises to Muslim customers of wrongly labelled "halal" products

The Metro, Independent and Mail on Sunday report on a food labelling issue which has forced supermarket chain Aldi to issue an apology to Muslim customers after a food item was wrongly labelled as ‘halal’ certified while the ingredients list included things like ‘pork blood’, ‘pork skin’ and ‘pork stock’.

The food items, snacks produced by Scottish company Punjab Pakora, bore health stamps which certified the products as fit for halal consumption when the ingredients list evidently suggested otherwise. Punjab Pakora have apologised for the error saying that it was the result of a blip in the printing of food labels. The careless application of health stamps, as required by EU regulations, is clearly an issue that needs to be properly addressed if labels are to command consumer confidence.

Food labelling of meat products has been in the news quite consistently over the last few months as contamination in the food chain and calls for clearer labelling of meat products has mobilised consumers who observe dietary laws such as halal and kosher, animal rights activists, and consumers wishing to support British farming, to demand more information and better labelling on products. With the European Commission report into the labelling of stunned and unstunned meat still expected, and the Conservative party manifesto pledging to protect halal and schechita slaughter methods, it is likely the debate will rumble on.

There is another facet to the way in which the newspapers have reported the story and that is the use of stereotype.

The Independent and Metro headlined the articles “Aldi apologises after selling pork products as ‘halal’” and “Aldi’s been serving halal meat that contains pork” respectively. The Mail on Sunday however, titled its story, “Muslim fury after Aldi is found selling ‘halal’ Indian-style snacks that contained forbidden PORK”.

In their analysis on representations of Islam and Muslims in the British press, professors Tony McEnery and Paul Baker concluded, “In particular, they [Muslim leaders] were often seen as offended, angry, outraged, hostile and indignant. Yet they were also criticised for not condemning certain things. So they are either seen as too angry or not angry enough.”

A read of some of the comments posted under the article on the MailOnline page offers some indication of the reaction ‘”Muslim fury” elicits from the general population.Examples of some of the posts responding to the Daily Mail story include:

“Nothing to my fury when I find I’m eating halal meat.”

“Muslims don’t have to eat it so why the anger?, just avoid the product.”

“Not half as much as I am outraged at most of the meat I am forced to buy being halal.”

“I’m more offended by halal than that!”

“How about other people’s fury about buying supermarket meat products without knowing the animals had been religiously slaughtered because it wasn’t labelled as such? Do the people complaining about this appreciate how unnacceptable that was, or are religious sensibilities the only thing that matters?”

“And I am outraged that I am unwittingly being sold halal meat as it goes against all my beliefs!!!! But that doesn’t matter does it?”

“They’re disgusted? I’m disgusted that a civilised country like Britain should have anything to do with halal meat.”

As one post on the Mail Online puts it: “Too much racism on here, most of the People on here were crying when horse meat was found in ready meals.”