A customer who has been a frequently going to Pret A Manger has been left shocked after he discovered a Pret sandwich he has been eating for 12 years is not halal.<\/p>\n
Khalid Qadeer has issued a complaint to Pret after noticing his favourite tuna baguette sandwich contained white wine vinegar.<\/p>\n
Qadeer was shocked after noticing the ingredient listed on a new printed label.<\/p>\n
White wine vinegar is not considered halal in Islam.<\/p>\n
Despite that, the ingredient is also not listed on fridge labels in store, reports Mirror Online.<\/p>\n
Pret has come under fire previously over the deaths of two customers who suffered allergic reactions from consuming the restaurant’s food.<\/p>\n
They have placed new labels containing a full list of ingredients on all Pret food products – and Mr Qadeer has slammed Pret for failing to mention white wine vinegar as a listed ingredient until now.<\/p>\n
Mr Qadeer said white wine vinegar is “like a nut allergy” for many Muslims as they have “zero tolerance” towards it.<\/p>\n
He told Metro.co.uk: “Being a Muslim I can\u2019t consume anything with alcohol. And there\u2019s probably thousands of Muslims who buy products from Pret.<\/p>\n
“As most people know, some Muslims drink alcohol and the rest, but there is a certain percentage that will have a \u201coh what the f***\u201d moment here.”<\/p>\n
He added: “I\u2019ve worked in the City for the last 12 years as a tax adviser and I would have never bought the product had I known.”<\/p>\n
Mr Qadeer complained to his local Pret store manager and his case was later escalated to Pret\u2019s CEO, Clive Schlee.<\/p>\n
In an email seen by Metro.co.uk, the CEO said his “technicians” have been “calculating the alcohol content of the white wine vinegar” in the tuna mayo baguette.<\/p>\n
Mr Schlee wrote: “We have now established it contains much less than even a trace amount and is certainly well below the labelling threshold.<\/p>\n
“By way of comparison there is much less alcohol than you would find in most orange juices.”<\/p>\n
Mr Qadeer later met the CEO in person at one of his stores in London, but he still felt like his concerns had been \u2018dismissed\u2019.<\/p>\n
He said: “Our tolerance to alcohol is nil. There\u2019s no margin here.”<\/p>\n
Mr Qadeer added: “He feels it\u2019s my responsibility to check the ingredients on the website.<\/p>\n
“To some extent it is but to a greater extent he should take responsibility that his Muslim customers have been consuming alcohol.<\/p>\n
“Whether it\u2019s 1% or 0.1%, there is zero tolerance. It\u2019s like a nut allergy.<\/p>\n
“They [people with allergies] have zero tolerance and likewise with staunch Muslims, they would be pretty upset and devastated if they knew.”<\/p>\n
A Pret spokesperson said their sandwiches have never been labelled as halal-certified.<\/p>\n
They said: \u2018Whilst we\u2019re very sorry that Mr Qadeer feels he was misled, the food and drink sold at Pret has never been labelled as halal-certified and we have never made any halal product claims.<\/p>\n
“We always encourage anyone with specific dietary needs to speak to a team member or visit our website to check whether a product is suitable for them.”<\/p>\n
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A customer who has been a frequently going to Pret A Manger has been left shocked after he discovered a Pret sandwich he has been eating for 12 years is not halal. Khalid Qadeer has issued a complaint to Pret after noticing his favourite tuna baguette sandwich contained white wine vinegar. Qadeer was shocked after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,3,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}