Does Halal / Kosher food have to be labelled?

Does halal/kosher food have to be labelled as such?

No.

However, if food is positively described as halal/kosher then it should be halal/kosher (i.e., not misleading).

In order for it to be a legal requirement there would have to be a (new) specific law.

In 2014 the House of Commons voted on this point and declined to introduce legislation. At that time, most food labelling laws came from the EU but now we have left the EU we could in theory introduce our own law. But bear in mind any products imported from the EU would need to be labelled in the same way…so that could scupper such a plan.

You can read about the House of Commons vote in 2014 at the link below

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140513/debtext/140513-0004.htm

I think there would actually have to be two points on the packaging regarding meat products:

Is it halal/kosher and was it stunned/non stunned before being killed as I think different people (religious or not) give different weight to those things. By that I mean some Muslims may not might mind if the animal was not stunned. Whereas some non Muslims may not care if the food is classed as halal as long as the animal was stunned.

What I do find amusing about people who get into a rage about this topic is that they don’t seem that bothered about all the mistreatment animals suffer whilst they are alive on badly run farms or slaughterhouses.

I am not against labelling as such – although there may be some pushback from businesses because they would alienate some customers either way but also because their labelling information may have to be dynamic depending on who their supplier is day to day.

If allergen labelling is anything to go by – in my experience many businesses won’t be updating their information if they change to a different product/supplier. So how accurate the information would be is anyone’s guess.

One thing you can probably be assured is that Trading Standards won’t be regularly checking every premise in the country to ensure the information is accurate if such legislation ever comes into force.