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Abstract:

Religious slaughter is carried out legally in the European Union in licensed slaughterhouses by authorized slaughter-men of the Jewish and Islamic faiths. Commercial halal and kosher meat production is (partly) associated with the slaughter of animals without stunning. The purpose of pre-slaughter stunning of livestock is to ensure that animals are insensible to pain before the act of slaughter. A survey was organised to know Flemish consumer perceptions of meat form stunned and non-stunned slaughtered animals. A questionnaire was used to collect data from people through face to face interviewing in Flanders from August 2015 till 15 September 2015. The first part of the questionnaire included questions about meat consumption. In a second part, respondents were asked to describe their perception about meat form stunned and non-stunned slaughtered animals. The last part dealt with general information about the respondents regarding sex, age, religion and area of residence. A total of 200 people (aged 18–87 years) were interrogated on social events, markets or in railway stations in the provinces of Flanders. Respondents were chosen in such a way as to obtain a sample of wide diversity of the population in terms of gender, age, family size, and living environment. Results show that in spite of several media campaigns of animal welfare organizations over the past few years, still 24 % of the Flemish respondents were not aware of the fact that not all animals are stunned before slaughter. According to the respondents, religion (57 %) and cost reduction (15 %) are main reasons for non-stunned slaughter. About 54 % of the respondents advocates to ban non-stunned slaughter as soon as possible. About 41 % of the respondents advocates the introduction of a label for meat from non-stunned animals. In conclusion, half of the respondents wants to ban non-stunned slaughter.