(JTA) — A slaughterhouse that supplies kosher meat to London-area stores has stopped kosher slaughter following a protest by McDonald’s.
Slaney Foods in County Wexford, Ireland, decided to stop religious slaughter, the Jewish Chronicle reported. Slaney has supplied meat to McDonald’s for eight years.
McDonald’s has been under fire in recent days since media reports that halal meat, which is ritually slaughtered for Muslims, is used by some of the fast-food chain’s restaurants. After denying that such meat was used because it is against company policy, McDonald’s was forced to admit that some of its meat indeed was ritually slaughtered at Slaney.
Some McDonald’s patrons are against eating food made from ritually slaughtered meat because the animal is not stunned unconscious before it is slaughtered.
The Jewish Chronicle reported rumors had circulated that McDonald’s had given the slaughterhouse an ultimatum, but they have been disproven. But the newspaper quoted the slaughterhouse’s managing director, Rory Fanning, as saying that “It’s not that we are doing it because someone was influencing us outside the company. We made the decision ourselves.
“There has been a lot of media coverage of ritual slaughter, and it was in the context of that that the decision was made," she told the newspaper. "I’m not saying it’s the right decision. I am very hesitant.”
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