Organic Certification
From the 8 organic certifying bodies in the UK, none of them are willing to certify the welfare of an animal raised in accordance to their standards if it is not stunned prior to being slaughtered and so we remain unable to call our products organic following slaughter. To circumvent this, H&T Foods introduced the term 'organically reared' into the halal market place specifically for our products that are certified till point of slaughter.
Our lambs are certified by the Soil Association and our chickens are certified by the Organic Food Federation. To provide our customers assurance of welfare systems employed in rearing, upon request we share excerpts of the week's FCI (Food Chain Information report) presented as a requirement to the FSA (Foods Standards Agency) prior to slaughter, which highlights the welfare standard employed. See example below.
We have inadvertently found this method to be robust in its application as it provides an update to the specific batch of chickens in question and not just being presented a generic certificate which can also be prone to abuse.
Our Free Range chickens are reared to RSPCA Assured production standards are subject to similar restrictions in terms of certification being withheld due to their being non-stun slaughtered.
Though we do continue to petition the organic certifying bodies to reconsider their rejection of non stun halal slaughter, as we feel that in doing so they are doing a dis-service to animal welfare generally and also their decision is based primarily on prejudice.