Adelaide residents are furious after discovering their local Hungry Jacks is now halal certified, with many vowing to boycott the restaurant.
A photo of the halal certification for the store in Parafield shared on social media on Saturday shows a list of menu items that are now prepared according to Islamic guidelines, including beef and chicken item such as Whoppers and chicken nuggets, as well as chips, hash browns, onion rings and shakes.
The revelation that the food now had Islamic religious approval shocked locals, and many said they would no longer eat at the Hungry Jacks.
“Won’t be going there again,” read the most popular comment on the post.
“I won’t be going there, then. I don’t want my food to be tainted with ideology from ANY religion,” wrote another.
“I don’t want my food to cost even one cent more to pander to Muslims, nor any other religions. Food that has a religious ideology attached should be arranged by the people that want it, not imposed on the general public.”
“Well I won’t be going there. Assimilate into the country you live in, or live in the country you support,” wrote a third.
Others asked how the food could genuinely be halal certified since the kitchen was used to cook bacon, and some cast doubts over the certification process.
“This just proves that halal is a BS Islam tax, there’s no way the store can actually be halal certified as well as selling bacon that is cooked on the same grills using the same utensils as the meat, this is just hypocritical at best,” wrote one Aussie.
“The halal certification process is a joke. I worked in a gluten free bakery, the Imam came in, looked around asked if we clean the ovens before cooking something else in them (he told us to just say yes even if we didn’t do it),” another wrote.
“He saw the bacon was not kept in a different cool room (we only had one cool room), he just said eh don’t worry just say it’s kept separate. My boss paid $300 and the bakery got halal certified even though it didn’t meet the proper criteria.”
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson led a campaign against unlabelled halal food products in 2017, and warned Australians that buying halal-certified Easter chocolates from companies such as Cadburys was “financially supporting the islamisation of Australia”.
In the same year she questioned whether cows were being slaughtered humanely under halal certification, and the RSPCA later confirmed some abattoirs have exemptions to kill cattle and sheep without stunning them first for both halal and kosher slaughter.
Header image: Left, Parafield Hungry Jacks (Google Maps). Right, the halal certificate (Facebook).
