LONDON – Britain's economic crisis is revealing new challenges for Muslim minorities in accessing halal food, especially as the past year has seen many warnings about food banks in the UK reaching breaking points.
As society's needs for food banks escalate, so do extraordinary needs such as halal food, lactose- or gluten-free diabetic food, and other special diets, exacerbating pressure on food banks.
This comes at a time when the cost of gas bills has risen by about 130%, while food price inflation has generally reached 16.7% and the cost of food classified as a special diet is rising even more.
In this context, Al Jazeera Net contacted Kate Curtos, responsible for the "Love Works Food Bank" (Love Works), which serves the county of Surrey, southeast of London, and confirmed the official that the situation got out of control in just one year.
The number of food parcel recipients doubled from 741 in 2019 to 2590,2022 in <>. Kate explained that the demand for food parcels increases in winter due to high heating bills, so many families have the choice of either heating or food bills.
The entrance to one of the food storage stores of the "Love Works" institution in the city of "Red Hill Surrey" southeast of London (Al Jazeera Net)
Increase in the number of people coming to food banks
Love Works Food Bank has received several distress calls regarding the provision of special foods such as diabetics and gluten allergy patients, in addition to the need for halal food.
Love Works Food Bank relies on in-kind donations rather than material, and despite their continuous calls to receive all types of donations, the donations received by the bank do not meet the distress requests it receives, especially in these exceptional categories.
Compounding the crisis, the distress began to include things outside the framework of food, as the bank receives personal care requirements, so it added a new item to receive in-kind donations of soap, toothbrushes, baby diapers and sanitary pads for women.
Screening and auditing of exceptional needs
Love Works Food Bank highly vets all products sent in packages to suit the needs of the special family of Muslims, allergy sufferers and diabetes, but halal meat poses an unprecedented challenge for Muslim families, as official food banks provide parcels of dry food, canned food, detergents, vegetables, fruits and fresh pastries, provided by restaurants in the region.
Love Works Bank has tried to look for alternative solutions for Muslim families and provide some halal canned goods, but halal sausages cost £10, which is 10 times the cost of non-halal sausages in the region.
Canned vegetables arranged according to expiration dates so that they are used according to the appropriate timeline (Al Jazeera Net)
Muslim families haven't eaten meat for two years
Al Jazeera Net contacted some Muslim families who receive support from food banks in the "Red Hill Surrey" area, and they are asylum seekers and reside in temporary residential premises, where accommodation costs and bills are covered, and asylum seekers receive amounts of money ranging from £9 to £45 per week, with meals of food coupons.
Although some rooms have a kitchen, many families do not have cooking utensils at all, as Al Jazeera Net toured this building to talk to some families.
One asylum seeker, who declined to be named, says she hasn't tasted the meat for two years or more: "Exactly since I was in another makeshift hotel that serves ready-made food."
Another woman added, "I ate meat last year on Eid al-Adha when some Muslims gave us a donation of sacrificial meat, without that we don't get any meat from food banks, only canned tuna."
The families residing in the headquarters suffer from knowing their legal position, as their members told Al Jazeera Net that they are stuck at this stage (asylum application) for more than three years, and some of them recently obtained a work permit, while their request for asylum is still pending.
The asylum seekers tried to contact the mosque in the area, but received no responses regarding support from the mosque, which is a 5-minute walk from the asylum seekers' residence.
This comes amid societal concerns about communicating with asylum seekers, due to news circulating about the consequences of communicating with them, due to the new law that criminalizes helping asylum seekers who entered the country irregularly.
It is difficult for members of the community to verify the way and legality of asylum seekers enter, so society faces only one solution, which is to wait for the official authorities to resolve the crisis.
Food bank cart with a promotional poster inviting the people of the region to donate all kinds of food (Al Jazeera Net)
Variation in geographical distribution
The Muslim population in Surrey ranks penultimate with an estimate of 3.2% of the total population, while the Muslim population in Birmingham rises to 29.9%, which explains the large difference in the receipt of services for Muslims in general between the two provinces.
The Muslim population is growing in Britain, and many Muslim communities are concentrated in certain cities such as Manchester and Birmingham, while many Muslim families living in places where they are a rare minority suffer, resulting in a severe scarcity of services provided to Muslims in those areas, especially halal food.
In provinces with wider Muslim communities, community solidarity allows for halal food banks that not only cover the needs of Muslims in the region, but also open the door wide to every questioner regardless of their religious background.
Muslim Hands serves halal meals daily in different parts of the UK.
Al Jazeera Net contacted the institution's kitchen official Imran Khan, where he confirmed that the institution provides hundreds of hot meals daily, without allocating meals to Muslims only, but all cooked meals are halal meat.
However, the nearest food bank that provides halal cooked meat to affected families in the southern county of Surrey, about an hour and a half away, is located in the city of Hanslow, north of Surrey, London, with a high financial cost of transportation that exceeds the cost of 10 meals, making the cost of access to food higher than the food itself.