School lunch provider Compass admits halal meals ‘friendly’ but not certified

By Giles Dexter of RNZ

School lunch provider Compass has admitted the halal meals it delivers to schools are not halal certified.

Stuff had reported a school in Papatoetoe raised concerns that the meals it was supplied were instead classed as “halal friendly”.

Halal (meaning “permissible” in Arabic) refers to practices that are permitted under Islam.

With reference to food, it was a strict dietary standard which not only applied to the ingredients themselves but also their preparation.

Meat was slaughtered and prepared in a specific way, but it must also not be contaminated by other surfaces, utensils or equipment that had not been cleaned according to Islamic law.

In a statement, The School Lunch Collective (of which Compass is part) told RNZ its meals were made with halal-certified beef and chicken ingredients, and did not contain pork or pork-containing ingredients.

David Seymour says to go to fully halal certified would require the massive expense of separate preparation facilities, packaging and distribution processes that he believes is not justified. Photo / RNZ / Marika Khabazi

“Our team are very well trained, and we have very strict cleaning and wash-down procedures between each meal production, although our facility is not halal certified. Therefore, we class our meals as ‘Halal Friendly’,” the statement said.

Compass said it was open to engaging with the Muslim community to see how it could develop its halal meals further, and advised individuals with halal requirements to exercise personal discretion and assess their comfort levels before consuming the meals.

Labour said students had been “misled” about the meals and it was unacceptable.

“Claiming a meal is religiously permissible for groups of students when it isn’t breaks a trust we have fought long and hard to establish with communities who have long called Aotearoa home,” said the party’s ethnic communities spokeswoman, Jennie Salesa.

In a statement, Associate Education Minister David Seymour – who was responsible for the changes to the school lunch programme – said Labour was being misleading when it said students were misled, because the School Lunch Collective had always described the meals as halal friendly.

The Collective’s website did say the meals were not halal-certified because the production facility was not strictly halal.

“Halal lunches are prepared separately, with no pork, and halal-certified chicken and beef,” Seymour said.

“However, to go to fully halal-certified would require the massive expense of separate preparation facilities, packaging and distribution processes. I don’t believe that expense would be justified.”

- RNZ

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