About GB 5443
Direct Meats (Knights Farm) Ltd T/A Blackwell & Co is based in Colchester (CO6), England. The Food Standards Agency approves it for cold storage, cutting meat, making mince, making meat preparations such as sausages and marinated meat and processing meat products.
Is meat from GB 5443 halal?
The code shows which plant cut, prepared or packed the meat, not whether it is halal. Look for a halal logo from a named certifier, such as HMC or HFA, or ask the brand which certifier approves the product. More in halal meat codes.
What this approval means for halal
A cold store keeps chilled or frozen products. It does not cut, prepare or slaughter, so its approval says nothing about how the meat was produced.
A cutting plant cuts carcasses into joints and portions. It does not slaughter animals, so the meat arrives from a slaughterhouse and the halal question moves upstream: where the meat came from, and whether halal meat is kept apart from non-halal meat while it is cut.
A mince approval means the plant makes minced meat. Mince is made from trimmings, so one batch can combine meat from several carcasses and suppliers.
What to ask before you rely on it
- Are halal-certified products stored separately and labelled?
- Which slaughterhouses supply this plant, and are they halal certified?
- Is halal meat cut on separate lines or at separate times from non-halal meat?
- Is the raw meat halal certified at source?
- Is halal mince made separately from non-halal mince?
Ask the brand on the pack, or the halal certifier named on it. Plants rarely publish this, so a written answer from the brand is the best evidence.
Meat plants in the area
The CO postcode area has 4 approved meat plants in the Food Standards Agency list, 1 of them slaughterhouses and 4 cutting plants. England has 731 in total.