Halal food

UK Halal certification bodies are not accountable or supervised by any public body, and therefore consumers have little to go on beyond trusting the producers, says barrister John Pointing, of Statutory Nuisance Solutions. Writing in NLJ this week, he calls for more regulation. “An important EU-wide initiative, which involves the British Standards Institute, is currently under way to introduce common standards for the production, monitoring and labelling of Halal foods. It is hoped that an authoritative and consistent body of rules can be agreed, particularly over the stunning issue.”