Licious, a Bangalore based popular brand that supplies raw meat and ready to cook meat items, has informed that they have decided to supply only halal meat as part of business policy.
The company was responding to an email sent by an angry customer who claimed to have stopped buying from the company. The mail was sent past midnight yesterday following an outrage on Twitter where people demanded to know why most in India are forced to eat halal meat even when their religious beliefs don’t require them to. People lamented lack of choice while buying raw meat or while ordering cooked food at restaurants.
“Are you serving in gulf countries Or India? Why halal certified? Only Muslims are buying from your portal? I have stopped ordering on your portal as you are halal certified. To be halal compliant don’t know how many jamatis you have on your payroll. Be secular and Stop being part of this halal economy,” read the angry email by one Manohar.
The email was responded to by the company at 2.19 PM today (Sunday 26th April), where it was clarified that Licious had a business policy to supply only halal meat, and thus customers had no choice but to buy halal only from Licious.
OpIndia was copied on the mail by the customer, and thus we too received the response in our inbox. Therefore, we can confirm that the said response is indeed from Licious, which was sent from [email protected] email id, which is listed as the contact email on the official website of the company.
We have asked Licious to clarify if their response means that they are refusing to supply non-halal meat in the Indian markets even if there is demand from customers. We will update this report when we get any response.
Halal economics
In August 2019, fast-food chain McDonald’s India found itself in a soup after it admitted on discriminating against non-Muslims as part of their business model in India. McDonald’s India had asserted that all the meat used by them is Halal meat. Since Halal guidelines mandate that only Muslims are involved in the entire slaughtering and packaging process, such business model is discriminating against other religions who are involved in the business and denying them the equal opportunity to earn.
One Harish Sharma had filed a legal notice to McDonald’s India through advocate Ishkaran Bhandari on August 26 2019. The legal notice was sent to McDonald’s India, Mr Amit Jatia (Joint Venture partner and McDonald’s India’s Managing Director) and Mr Vikram Bakshi (Joint Venture partner and McDonald’s India’s Managing Director). In October, a second legal notice was served on McDonald’s India.
