Concern About Halal Food Handling in Walsall

Assalamu Alaikum everyone, I want to share something I saw with my own eyes while working at Direct Food Solutions (Unit 3-4 Ashmore Lake Way, Willenhall WV12 4LF) in Willenhall, Walsall. It’s about how they handle halal, pork, and vegetarian items, and honestly, it worried me a lot. The main thing that bothered me was seeing halal-labelled sandwiches, pork/bacon ones, and vegetarian ones all made in the same workspace. What really got to me was watching workers touch bacon or pork with their gloves on, and then use those same gloves to handle halal chicken. I never saw them swap gloves between touching pork and halal stuff. Lots of times, food was just handled by hand instead of using different tools for different ingredients. I even saw lettuce that had dropped on the floor being picked up, and then the same gloves were still used for other food handling. From what I personally saw, the hygiene and cross-contamination risks were seriously worrying. As a Muslim, the way halal food was treated hit me especially hard. These products are literally marked as halal, so Muslim folks buying them should have the right to trust they’ve been handled properly-especially when pork and bacon are being prepared right there in the same place. What makes it even more alarming is that this company is a supplier. That means the food they make might be going to other businesses and end up with customers who have no clue how it was handled beforehand. So, I’d really urge any business that’s buying from or thinking of dealing with this company to do their own proper checks on hygiene, food handling, cross-contamination, and keeping things separate. Based on what I witnessed, I personally wouldn’t feel good about eating food made there. Sadly, I couldn’t snap any photos or videos because phones had to be locked away in lockers while we were on the production floor. Another big worry was about illegal working. When I talked to a lot of workers, quite a few told me straight up that they didn’t have legal permission to work in the UK. Hearing that made me really concerned that illegal working could be widespread there, maybe even among supervisors or managers. I also knew about workers getting paid in cash. I can’t say myself why the company does cash payments, so I’ll leave it to the proper authorities to figure out if there’s any link with the right-to-work issues. I can’t personally check anyone’s immigration papers or prove their status myself, so I’m not naming specific workers or claiming anything as confirmed. But based on what people told me directly, I think the Home Office should do proper right-to-work checks across the whole workplace. I’m putting this out there because customers-especially Muslims buying halal-labelled food-and businesses that get supplies deserve to know about the food-handling practices I saw with my own eyes, so they can make their own choices. Just to be clear, English isn’t my first language, so I used ChatGPT to help me write this out clearly. But the experiences and chats I’ve talked about are all mine. JazakAllah khair for reading.