The Farmers Mart Jun/Jul 2014 - Issue 34 | Page 14

FARM NEWS

BIRMINGHAM GETS ITS OWN
HALAL FOOD PARK
A halal food park has opened in
Birmingham funded by a private
consortium, with processing
companies JKY Food Solutions and
Asia Halal Meat buying up space for
up to 10 halal businesses.
Now operational, the food park, in
Leopold Street, Birmingham, will be
called First Halal Business Park. There are
currently three meat processing companies
on-site – JKY Food Solutions, Asia Halal
Meat and Asia Halal Poultry – with more
due to move in during the year.
JKY Food Solutions, set up in 2010,
supplies over 150 restaurants and 70-80
retail shops. Director Muhammed Junaid
said: “We were previously in too small a
premises, so we moved to this big place
and now we have room for a lot of other
halal businesses too. We are selling to
the Muslim community as we grow as a
business, and we supply to other ethnic
communities too.”

The chicken, beef and lamb products,
which also include kebabs and marinated
meats, have started to fill the shelves in
250 Tesco stores and 130 Sainsbury’s
stores. The lines are supplied through
One Stop Halal, which has formed a joint
venture with Shazans.
Naved Syed, Janan Meat MD and halal
adviser to the Yorkshire Association of
Asian Businesses, said: “This is the first
time the Muslim community has a purposebuilt site like this – it’s a giant step forward
for Muslims.”
Retail giants increase
halal offerings
Tesco and Sainsbury’s have increased
their chilled halal offerings by
introducing the Shazans brand into
their stores, offering burgers and
sausages to hundreds of shops
around the country.

‘we are proud to
offer an extensive
range of products’
A spokesperson from Tesco said: “We
are proud to offer an extensive range of
products to meet the needs of customers
from all communities. Our Halal range
is clearly marked to enable customers
to make informed choices about their
purchases.”
Sainsbury’s will stock 18 lines, inlcuding
chicken breast fillets, tandoori masala
chicken drumsticks and beef burgers.

www.farmers-mart.co.uk

Halal butcher chain expands
with £1m Lloyds loan
Tariq Halal Meats, one of London’s
largest halal butcher chains, has
added a new warehouse and butcher’s
shop to its operations, with the help
of a £1m loan from Lloyds Bank
Commercial Banking.

‘Growing the business is
a top priority for us and
we knew that we would
need to stop renting’

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Jun/Jul 2014 FarmersMart

The new Wembley warehouse, which
is three times the size of the company’s
previous facilities, and the Hounslow
butcher’s shop have created 15 jobs. A
butcher’s academy at the Wembley site
will also be launched later this year to train
aspiring halal butchers.
Tariq Shekh, who opened his first
warehouse in 2004 and now supplies more
than 300 butcher’s shops across in London,
said: “Growing the business is a top priority
for us and we knew that we would need to
stop renting our existing warehouses and

instead purchase the freehold to a new
site in order to do this. Not only has this
meant we are now able to increase our
stock, but as we are no longer renting, we
have also been able to invest more capital
into launching our new butcher’s shop in
Hounslow, which opened this month.”
The Hounslow shop is the company’s fifth
store to open its doors, and a further two will
open in Streatham and Fulham next month.
The new additions are part of an overall
strategy to open 25 shops over the next
three years.

To read more, visit www.farmers-mart.co.uk