After a social media post went viral alleging that the meat sold by popular online food delivery platforms Fresh to Home, Big Basket, and Licious foods is non-Halal, Siasat.com dug deep to fact check the claim. All three companies are headquartered out of Bengaluru, Karnataka.
Siasat.com reached out to all three companies on Twitter via direct messages in order to gain clarity on the subject but to no avail. Then, we reached out to the companies’ toll-free customer care numbers. The representative of Bigbasket clarified that they sell both Halal and Jhatka cuts and it’s for the customers to choose what to buy.
The customer care representative of Licious said that the company doesn’t slaughter the animals itself but procures already cut meat from government-certified vendors. They also said that the meat that is procured goes through various safety checks. But on the question of Halal or not, the representative replied: “No information”.
Fresh to Home, another popular online platform, even after multiple attempts to reach out, evaded the question, and the customer care representatives responded that they will get back with information on the subject but haven’t yet, until the time of publishing this report.
Customers who buy meat from online platforms have the right to know whether they are getting the right meat based on their religious preferences. Earlier, many major meat selling platforms specified that they sold Halal-certified meat. But, due to the rise of Hindutva food politics in the country, companies are choosing to play safe by not clearly mentioning the type of cut sold on their platforms.
