Meat supplier ordered not to relabel

A meat supplier has been ordered by the Cape Town High Court not to relabel non-halaal products as halaal.

Last week, the Red Meat Industry Forum of South Africa, the SA Meat Industry Company and trustees of the SA National Halaal Authority were among 17 applicants who sought an urgent interim interdict in the Cape Town High Court to stop Orion Cold Storage (OCS) from changing product information and relabelling food.

Mohamed Saeed Navlakhi, theological director of the SA National Halaal Authority, said they were satisfied with the order preventing OCS from any unlawful practice on its premises.

But Patrick Gaertner, MD of OCS, claimed in court papers that, following the court application, he learnt that two former distribution agents (who worked independently from Orion's premises) had allegedly instructed his employees to change the labels on some stock - like legitimately imported pork hearts to sheep or veal hearts, imported kangaroo meat to chuck and blade, and to remove expiry dates from whole turkeys.

Gaertner said none of these actions was authorised by him and that his dealings with the suppliers ended last month. He said both had since been charged criminally.

He said OCS always ensured that whatever products it sold as halaal were properly certified.

An OCS employee, Muhammad Kambani, admitted in an affidavit that he changed labels, such as pork products to boneless sheep hearts, using a heat gun, and replaced them with labels allegedly provided by one of the former distributors.