Poultry farm that supplies Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s boiled halal chickens ALIVE
Birds spent agonising minutes in boiling hot water when they should have been stunned or had throats cut
A POULTRY company which supplies many of the UK's major supermarkets boiled chickens ALIVE after equipment meant to knock them out at the slaughterhouse failed.
Faulty electrical equipment meant that the birds, being handled by company 1Stop Halal, were not stunned before being killed.
The firm also failed to cut the chickens’ throats before they entered a scalding tank used to loosen feathers on dead birds.
It meant that the birds spent two minutes in very hot water and suffered an agonising death.
1Stop Halal suggested that the birds had died in a single incident in July last year, but an investigation by has now established that live birds were plunged into the scalding tank in TEN similar incidents on different days last year.
The episodes were uncovered during post-mortem examinations by meat hygiene inspectors employed by the Food Standards Agency.
The first incident, on July 6, involved 70 birds. There were nine more incidents involving between one and four birds over the next three months.
1Stop Halal stuns some birds by dipping their heads in an electrically charged water bath before cutting their throats.
It also kills chickens while they are conscious to cater for some Muslims who want to be sure the animals are alive at the point of slaughter.
In the first incident, the company switched from stun to non-stun slaughter after a fault with the water bath meant that 1Stop Halal had to rely on its slaughtermen to cut each chicken’s neck swiftly and accurately to minimise suffering.
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However, the production line handles 60,000 to 100,000 birds a day and some passed the slaughtermen without being cut - sparking a row between two members of staff over poor cutting during which 64 birds entered the scalding tank alive.
The 81 chickens involved were got rid of and not sent on to retailers.
1Stop Halal admitted causing unnecessary suffering to 81 chickens at its plant in Eye, Suffolk, earlier this month, with company co-owner Ranjit Singh Boparan, a multimillionaire known as the “chicken king”, fined £8,000 and ordered to pay £6,000 costs.
A statement from the company said: “We deeply regret the circumstances which occurred on the 6th July, 2015, during our non-stun slaughter when up to 81 birds were caused unnecessary suffering.
"This occurred on our first day of operating the facility at Eye and involved a degree of human error. "Employees who were involved in the incident no longer work for the business.
“Since this incident the company has invested substantially in further training [and] improved control systems and have processed more than 30 million birds.”
The company did not respond when quizzed about similar incidents on nine other days but said that Mr Boparan was not involved in the day-to-day running of the business.
Morrisons said that it sold chicken from 1Stop Halal and had “a small number of their concessions in our stores” but "don’t buy the products affected by the failure.”
Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s said that they sold halal meat from Shazans, a subsidiary of 1Stop Halal, which uses chicken from the Eye plant.
Sainsbury’s added: “We have been reassured that the Shazans line was not impacted by the court case.”
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