Not trying to “potong stim” here but the UK has Halal Subway since long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, time ago already.
“The HalalNews SG understands that the Subway delegation has held a formal meeting with MUIS officials at the end of 2017 to explain and clarify the aspirations and efforts they have made to meet all Halal MUIS certification requirements for all Subway branches in Singapore.”
This piece of news has been well received by the Muslim community in Singapore as previous attempts by the Singapore’s Muslim community to seek Subway’s consideration in making its stores Halal have failed
There was a petition titled “Make Subway Singapore Halal” by Shaik Syasya made about 2 years ago which garnered 130 signatures. “I love eating sandwiches esp subway. Its a hassle to commute to Johor just when u crave for Subway. So please make Subway Singapore halal,” someone said.
However it is not known why Subway Singapore took so long to start halal-certifying its stores. In United Kingdom (UK) where only 5.4% of its population is made up of Muslims (compared to Singapore’s 14.3% Muslim population), there’s about 10% of Subway outlets in the UK that are halal (202 out of 2000 Subway stores across UK). All Halal meats catered to Subway in the UK was certified by The Islamic Foundation of Ireland and surprisingly, the Central Islamic Committee of Thailand.
In 2010, Subway Singapore replied to its customers on Facebook:
“Dear fans,
We would love to be able to go Halal and we have looked into it very seriously. As we grow, more and more of our suppliers are giving us Halal options but unfortunately not all of them. To go Halal would increase our operational costs significantly as we will not be able to participate in SUBWAY restaurants’ huge global supply chain. And we do not want to hurt any of our customers by increasing prices. We know many of our competitors are Halal, but our menu is a lot more diversified with a lot more ingredients making the shift a more difficult task. So – we hear you. We’ll keep working on it and will review the situation periodically, and hopefully be able to satisfy all our customers eventually.
Subway Team”
Then again, there are currently around 2,000 Subway stores in the UK and Ireland, 202 of which are Halal stores selling only certified Halal meats. To be fair, the meats served at halal Subway stores have been produced to meet Subway stores high standards in taste, look and quality. The objective was to ensure the taste of the Halal products matched the taste of the Subway stores “Gold Standard” meats.
So why have Singaporeans been deprived of Halal Subway stores and who should the good people put the blame on? Consider the following:
1) Subway Singapore giving lame excuses. 2) Inaction of local Muslim body MUIS. 3) Bad luck Singapore.
Rilek1Corner
