Halal Food Options Needed on Campus

A University of Calgary student is trying to get more Muslim-friendly meat on campus.

Currently only one vendor on campus sells halal products, said Zainab Malik, an arts faculty representative on the University of Calgary Students’ Union.

For meat to be considered halal, it must come from animals slaughtered according to Islamic law.

Malik surveyed Muslim students and related clubs and received hundreds of responses from people concerned about the lack of halal eating options.

“So you can kind of tell that this is really something that is an issue at University of Calgary and we should definitely try looking into it and try to resolve it,” said the fourth year student.

Malik is now working with the U of C food services department to find a way to offer halal options at the dining centre adjacent to the student residences.

“So what we’re doing is that we’re currently just to find a new halal vendor that we can have,” she said.

“What we decided to do is we would choose one of the coffee shops that also sells food and instead of just selling regular food, we'll sell halal food which definitely will bring a lot more business in I believe.”

Malik said she hopes to see more options in the next two months.