A very depressing and frustrating day in Turkey today. A slaughterhouse in Balikisir that slaughters cattle and sheep was quite enthusiastic about using a stunner to render animals unconscious prior to shackling and cutting their throats when we visited 1.5 years ago. We instructed them back then on how to stun and leased them one of our captive bolt stunners for free. Since then they used it but some customers complained, wrongfully, that stunning is not Halal and made everyone nervous of being accused of not slaughtering correctly… As well, large customers (like supermarkets) that request to see the plants’ Halal certificate means that the plant has to convince their Halal certifiers… which is difficult as most halal certifiers are conservative and just in for making money. Stunning is often wrongly seen as not being halal here. It is such an ingrained myth that will take at least 1 generation to break… but Asalet from EonA is trying his best. Sadly, it meant that they returned the captive bolt stunner and cartridges to us and all animals (like these sheep there) will continue to experience this kind of torture and fear during slaughter, like across Turkey.
