Customers anger was sparked after the picture, which appears to have been taken in 2014, of a Cadbury’s employee holding a certificate showing its products are halal-certified surfaced on social media with the caption: “Cadbury proudly displaying their latest new halal certificates, pass it on.”
As soon as the image was re-shared on Twitter some customers accused the brand of “Muslim appeasement” while other threatened to boycott it all together, reports The Independent.
The English Defence League on its Facebook page also encouraged its followers to boycott Cadbury’s products.
As a result, Cadbury responded to the fierce reaction by explaining:
“None of our UK products are halal certified and we have never made any changes to our chocolate to specifically make them halal.”
“They are just suitable for those following a halal diet in the same way that standard food such as bread or water.”
Under Sharia law, or Islamic law, products that contain pork are not considered halal, and so should not be consumed by Muslims.
The image appears to originate from the firm’s Asia-Pacific market.
In 2014, Islamic authorities in Malaysia confirmed Cadbury chocolate had been found not to contain pork DNA after concerns were raised about whether the company’s chocolate contained pig DNA.
