A Muslim man was left shocked after he bought his regular tuna baguette at Morrisons, only to bite into it and discover it had non-halal chicken filling.
Abdul Habismillah, 23, was “disgusted” when his usually reliable sandwich was packaged wrongly and resulted in him taking a bite of meat that violated his religious beliefs.
He said he had bought the same tuna mayo and cucumber baguette almost every day for the past six months, and thought he was about to have his usual lunch.
“It’s quite disappointing, I felt disgusted,” he said. “Because I’m Muslim, I don’t have anything unless it’s HMC (Halal Monitoring Committee) or halal, I always get tuna or a salad.
“I always get a baguette, tuna mayo, cucumber, from the packaging it told me tuna.”
Habismillah purchased the sandwich and returned to his workplace. But after his first bite, he realised it was the wrong filling.
“It was all covered in mayo, I took my first bite, chicken, and I thought, ‘Am I being funny or is something wrong here?’ I checked it,” he explained.
He was shocked that a retail giant like Morrisons could make such a mistake and branded it “careless”.
“It’s different if it said ‘chicken’ on there, I would have checked if it was halal on the back,” Habismillah said.
“Obviously mistakes happen but this is just something else.”
Halal food adheres to Islamic law according to the Koran. Meat is only halal if the animal it comes from is slaughtered according to Islamic law, which involves killing it through a cut to the jugular vein, carotid artery and windpipe.
All blood is then drained from the carcass and a prayer is read during the slaughtering process. Pork is the only meat that cannot be made halal and is therefore restricted from consumption among Muslims.
Morrisons sells halal produce, and promises on its website that such products are labelled clearly.
A spokesperson for Morrisons said: “We take the accuracy of our labelling extremely seriously.
“Unfortunately, we have not met our usual high standard and the product in question was incorrectly labelled.
“We have offered our sincere apologies to the customer and assured him we have taken necessary steps to prevent this from happening in future.”
Additional reporting by SWNS
