As demand for chicken rises with Qatar’s ever-expanding population, the nation has been looking to diversify its poultry product imports. According to the Qatar Tribune, the Gulf state has most recently entered talks with Portugal about filling this need.
A Qatar Chamber board member told the newspaper about the potential deal, which was being discussed with a delegation of Portuguese officials in Doha this week.
Ali Abdul Latif al Missned was quoted as saying:
“We want Portugal to become our main supplier of chicken and other meat products for its quality and Islamic slaughtering practices.”
For its part, Portugal is interested in trading with Qatar in the areas of food, construction, building materials, and timber, Arab-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Aida Bouabdellah told the newspaper.
Current picture
Though Qatar grows some chicken locally, it imports the vast majority of its poultry products. About 72 percent is frozen poultry from Brazil, and 6 percent is fresh from Saudi Arabia, according to QatarVironment.org.
In the past few years, officials have also looked to Bulgaria for halal fresh chicken, following unreliable supply from Saudi.
But Qatar is also working to reduce its dependency on other nations for poultry. Last year, the Qatar Meat and Livestock Co. announced plans to build a $124 million poultry plant here.
An official for Widam (formerly known as Mawashi), however, said at the time that government approvals for licensing were holding up its development.
Thoughts?
“We want Portugal to become our main supplier of chicken and other meat products for its quality and Islamic slaughtering practices.”
Seriously? Since when Portugal is known for Sharia-compliant products? Can he back up his assertion with any reliable source?
What assertions are you looking for? Halal slaughter means the cutting the throat so that most of the blood is drained out. It can and is done in many non-Muslim countries.
Really? What about the slaughterer being muslim? what about saying Bismellah before slaughtering? what about turning the animal’s head towards the Qibla? what about doing it manually rather than using a machine like they do it now in the Western world?
If you read Arabic this would help you understand the issue with so-called Halal food coming from Western countries.
http://www.saaid.net/Doat/assuhaim/fatwa/2.htm
Haha, I never consider the religion of the person who has harvested or killed my food. How weird but also very divisive. We are all humans on this planet, show some respect for your fellow man
For Muslims it is actually a serious matter. Eating non-Halal food is strictly prohibited. So making sure that my meat is Sharia-compliant does not mean that I disrespect other people. It is actually weird that you thought of it like this.
It’s more weird in this day and age that is has to be that way.
I’d be more worried about the beard hairs getting in the meat
Well It seems that Portugal is either doing it now or willing to follow what Qatar has drawn up to meet the “Halal” requirement.
In reality, unless you do it yourself, you just never really know..A person or company is only as good as their word, or until caught…lol
What you are cast doubt on is not the regualtions, which as I understand from muslim friends in the UK are very strict, but the people that get around these for their own nefarious needs. These people will exist everywhere, whether it be mis-selling of halal meat or selling horse meat as beef/lamb.
There are a great many muslims in Europe, and all of these seemingly have little issue of meat that is sold as Halal. If there are some issues as you say, through your experieneces and those of your friends, these are issues with law breakers, not the regulations to govern halal meat.
Regulations regarding hygiene, packaging, traceability and labelling of the meat are drastic. However, the horse meat scandal showed us that the EU does not have enough inspectors to catch all the fraudsters, and lobbies managed to inject many loopholes in these “drastic” laws. For example, meat coming from Romania and packaged in France can be labelled “French meat”.
Now going back to the Halal meat issue, I am afraid your Muslim friends in the UK are not aware that there is no legislation concerning Halal food, and that anyone can legally stick a “Halal meat” sticker in his shop and nobody will ask him to prove it. And this is actually what is happening unfortunately. I don’t know if things changed recently, but that had been the case at least up till 2011.
And by the way, the same applies to Kosher meat in the UK. The only difference is that the Jewish community there is more organized and have more reliable oulets for kosher food.
The EU is not a country – it is for the countries themselves to police this. And, despite the furore in the press, the incidence of horse meat was very small compared the volumes consumed. In addition, of the volume of horse meat that was substituted for beef/lamb, this was in ready meals, not butchered, fresh meat. Also, how daft must you be to confuse horse meat (red meat) with chicken (white meat)?
And I never said there was legislation for dealing with Halal meat, only regulation. There is a difference.
So if the UK has problems controlling the ‘halal’ industry. Why do you think the Muslim countries have it any better?
Indeed, so by inference, you are saying that it is the UK Muslim community that is culpable for contravention of the rules and regulations. After all, if the Jewish community can control the quality of Kosher meat, then the Muslim community can also do so for Halal?
Muslims in the UK are partially culpable for not being able to agree on one body to monitor the whole thing. Unfortunately there are many differences among Muslims also, with Shia and Ahmadis having their own version of Halal. The Jews are more organized and have respected Rabbis taking care of this. They are also better funded than Muslims. That being said, they have also many people selling dodgy meat as Kosher and they too have tried to lobby the British government for more action but to no avail. For the British government, this big mess of kosher, halal and religious practises in general is not something it would be interested to intervene in.
Another issue is that, in the absence of state laws, Muslims working on this Halal issue can only alert people about frauds but have no power to fix issues, sue fraudsters or even publicly shame them. It all goes by word of mouth in mosques. So yes, the lack of organization and financial support makes it difficult to ensure meat labelled Halal is really halal.
i trust portugals ability to make halal food products more than i trust most Muslim suppliers
It is not about opinions. It is about real facts.
This shows you know nothing about the struggle of Muslims in Europe to find real Halal meat and how they drive miles and miles from home just to buy meat from a trusted Muslim butcher.
depends on which part of Europe u live in, the UK, france, germany were never a problem unless you live in the middle of nowhere.
and its a real fact that a non Muslim country can still provide better quality halal food than a Muslim one.
Seriously? There are non Muslim schools in UK offering halal options for school dinners.
Seriously guys! What are you talking about? Since when Europe is a trusted source of meat? Are you kidding me? Have you not heard about the horse meat scandal? Do you not read newspapers and news website? May be you should check this out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_meat_adulteration_scandal
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/horsemeat-scandal
Guys I lived in the UK for over a year and I was involved with some friends in the Halal certification issue, so I have some knowledge about how things work there.
The horse meat scandal is a totally different scandal. Let’s save that one for another posting because I have a whole book ready for that one.
It would seem odd they moved to Europe if that is such a problem. I guess money overrides religious considerations every time.
I guess they could hear the Qatar refrain. If you don’t like it, you can leave
Yeah, a real struggle – these pics from London alone
%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fmullas.co.uk%252Fcategory%252Fhalal-meat-shop-london%252F%3B1024%3B768
Oh, of course London, I hear you say, what about outside the big cities then?
Nelson and Colne, two towns close to each other with a combined population of less than 50K, no less than 6 Halal meat outlets. Sure, some might have to drive miles, just like I have to, to get to Lulu, Spinneys, Landmark etc.
I think your Halal deprived Muslims in Europe argument is a tad porous?
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/search/halal+butchers+Nelson+Colne/@53.8575016,-2.1591728,13z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!2m4!3m3!1shalal+butchers+Nelson!2sColne,+Lancashire!3s0x487b8d5f9f1b21cb:0xe4205418bba975ed
Myrddin, we are talking about true certified Halal meat and not by any halal meat. When I lived in the UK in 2010, I attended a Halal meat conference and one of the speakers said they estimate the amount of non-Halal meat labelled Halal as 70% of all meat sold as Halal. Therefore all these pictures and signs do not mean anything 🙂
Yacine, if you attended a “Halal Meat Conference” in UK, does that not suggest that pretty much everything that can be done is being done? (imagine a quality bacon conference in Qatar) – facetious, but I couldn’t resist. 🙂
Extensive investigative documentaries, in UK have revealed no shortage of Muslim businesses willing to dupe fellow Muslims with respect to non-halal meat marketed as Halal, but do you suppose that is not possible anywhere in the World, even here in the Gulf?
Which brings me to your original post – why would Portugal be any more susceptible to greedy persons making a dishonest and deceptive buck at the expense of Halal expectant meat eaters, in Qatar, than local, or MENA, suppliers?
Actually a report came out here a few years ago stating that Shariah compliant meat that came from the west was often better regulated than shariah compliant meat coming from some Muslim countries. The reason being that in places like UK and US advertising meat as halal, kosher or organic meant strict and rigorous monitoring. Any slaughterhouse found wanting could be closed down and or sued.
Portugal, being one of the PIGS, is ready to lick the shoe of anyone willing to make a business deal with them.
I love Qatar, and don’t generally have anything bad to say about it. However, as a Chef (and a pretty good one!), who’s worked in Doha and will be doing again soon, my opinion is that the quality of meat available is pretty appalling.
If Qatar wants decent quality, reasonably priced, plentiful Halaal meats, it would be far better off encouraging home-reared meat, and just importing grain and animal feeds that store well for months/years.
Got to break that cycle of relying on others…..!
Yes. Home reared meat. Great.
However from what I hear this new venture of Qatar to provide their own chicken is just one humongous battery farm.
It will be the same stuff on C4 shelves just different packaging and less travel involved.
Will they be saying ‘Bismillah’ over every chicken they slaughter, I wonder?
I would love to hear about an organic chicken farm here. Surely that would be more in line also with the concept of halal.
I am afraid this is wishful thinking. Qatar will never be able to produce locally more than a tiny portion of the food it needs. Economically, it is not a viable option.
The only viable option is to buy/rent farms across Africa and in Australia and grow vegetables, fruits and animals there. Done properly, this will be enough to secure cheap and good quality food for Qatar. However, any political issues within these countries or between these countries and Qatar is likely to hurt this kind of business.
Any move away from that nasty stuff they call chicken that comes from Saudi and Brazil has got to be a good one. Black bones ( not killed and drained quickly enough), urine scarred skin (overcrowded or caged living areas that are not cleaned regularly, hence left long hours standing knee deep in their own filth), grey meat ( no exercise, poor diet), traces of blood in the meat itself (drained too slow after slaughter or worse died slowly).
All claiming to be halal.
Battery farmed, poorly fed, badly slaughtered rubbish.
I’ve never eaten so much red meat till I came here.
What I wouldn’t give for a juicy plump free range organic chicken.
We are what we eat folks.
This is a great idea, it will increase the quality of the meat available.
Ensuring quality chicken for consumers is one thing. Ensuring the chickens have been slaughtered according to best practice, both Halal and animal welfare is another. Even more important I would suggest, is consideration for the animals themselves, who die in their millions to feed us. Is it really too much to ask that they have a bit of space to move around naturally, socializing, feeding properly, with access to water and a quiet place to rest?
As a nation, Qatar prides itself on leading the rest. If a huge investment is to be made for ‘poultry plant’ , invest a little more and ensure the birds are happy and healthy. Apart from the responsibility humans have to ensure this, the resulting chicken will taste a whole lot better. It isn’t rocket science. Its all part of the Green Agenda.