MEAT LABELLING THREAT

PROPOSED NEW labels on meat could mislead the consumer and cause faith communities to suffer, campaigners have warned.

Shechita UK, the body that protects kosher meat production, called for an “honest and non-discriminatory” approach to food labelling as the government launched a 12-week consultation on “labelling for animal welfare”.

Shimon Cohen, director of Shechita UK, said that if labels turned out to be misleading “it could lead to... an affront to faith communities”.

He said he was confident the government would work with religious groups while restating its commitment to the protection of religious slaughter.

The government has not put forward any specific proposals as yet but advises that labelling should be “as simple as possible”.

Announcing the consultation, George Eustice, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said: “British farmers produce food to an exceptionally high standard of animal welfare and consumers have come to expect nothing less.

“Now that we have left the EU, we have an opportunity to look at food labelling – and whether the information that we give to shoppers helps them make informed choices.”

Labelling is important for the kosher trade because the hindquarters of animals slaughtered by shechitah – which rabbis consider too difficult to prepare for kosher homes – are sold on to the general market.

Mr Cohen said: “With regards to slaughter, one-dimensional labelling such as ‘stunned’ or ‘non-stunned’ would be innately pejorative and misleading to the consumer. It would advance the myth that mechanical, industrialised stunning is an allencompassing, animal welfare panacea. It is not.”

Mechanical stunning methods all cause pain and distress to the animal and frequently went wrong, he said, leaving the animal in even greater, prolonged agony.

He added: “If true consumer information is the goal, then comprehensive labelling that denotes the specific method of slaughter used needs to be provided.”

Two years ago, Mr Eustice backed a call for MPs to have a free vote on whether to require pre-slaughter stunning of animals – which would make shechita impossible.

He told MPs, “We often hear from representatives of organisations such as Shechita UK that the cut is so precise and clean that it all happens very quickly, but there is not really any evidence to support that.”

The consultation will provide a fresh opportunity for groups opposed to current exemptions for religious slaughter to put it under the spotlight.

Labelling could lead to an affront to faith communities