The Toronto Star – November 2, 2011
A group of Muslim restaurant franchisees is fighting fast-food chain Popeyes Louisiana Chicken in court over the right to sell hand-slaughtered Halal meat for religious reasons. The battle in Ontario Superior Court comes after the Atlanta-based franchise moved to replace the chicken supply with machine-killed birds in 14 Toronto restaurants. The company says it’s still Halal-certified; the franchisees claim the machine method is against the beliefs of a majority of Muslims.
Abdul Haffejee, who owns eight Popeyes in the GTA says that between 50 and 80 per cent of his customers are Muslim. For over 25 years, Popeyes sold hand-slaughtered Halal meat in all of its 59 southern Ontario stores, according to court documents. This occurred without major incident until January this year, when the long-time supplier announced it would be getting out of the hand-slaughtered chicken business because it was moving on to larger birds, an industry trend.
