You might remember McDonald’s being in the hot seat back in 2013 for the meat used in their menu. The controversy surrounding continuously this titan franchise is in regards to the meat’s origin, and just how HALAL it is. McDonald’s has now opened its “Labs” doors to the media to put an end, once and for all, to this controversy.
MCDONALD’S has declared that the suspicions rose originally from outside Morocco. “The issue is not exclusive to Morocco, but to most Muslim countries,” said Ouassila El Bakkali, corporate communication manager. According to Miss El Bakkali, not all the ingredients used by the franchise come from abroad, it’s a 50/50 deal; Onions, tomatoes and bread are all from Morocco. ”Even the miller is from Morocco,”confirms Miss El Bakkali. Save the day, Ouassila. Save the day. But can we draw your attention back to the real issue here, The Meat.
Back in 2013, in the midst of a major attack that McDonald’s faced by modern times’ most fearful: “Netizens”, the franchise’s Facebook page was overflowing with questions in regards of the origin of the meat in the country’s restaurants. Yet, McDonald’s gave no replies, leaving suspicions grow and develop into assumptions for about 3 months. “This controversy went viral around the time our online service was under construction. And because we did not want to make of this page our official portal for statements, we were trying to come up with the best way to issue one. This is why we decided to wait and do it on our web site, which is more representative of our image as a Multinational corporation”, explains Mr. Abdellah Bnaiche, Brand strategy vice president.
Back again to tackling the issue here, the meat is actually certified from Spain by the Instituto Halal under the surpervision of the Islamic council of Spain, and it comes also from Argentina from the Halal Catering Argentin under the supervision of the Islamic center of Argentina [CIRA]. According to Yabiladi.com, the information collected from the Spanish organization website says that its certification is authorized in 18 different countries, including Morocco [Ministry of Health] and the UAE.
After laying down all these clarification, this should inspire some comfort as countries such as Indonesia tend to be very strict in regards to their standards towards Halal meat. However, Moroccans seem yet with very little faith in McDonald’s, and still think [according to a common agreement among Netizens at least] that the meat is not all Halal. “We are planning another visit around the end of this year to Spain, in order to put an end to this”, said Miss El Bakkali referring to the press trip organized back in 2009 to McDonald’s meat supplier’s slaughterhouse in Spain.
M.B
